TAR-DUST 

The  Story  of 
An  American   Qirl 


By 
FANNIE  HURST 

Author  of 
GASLIGHT  SONATAS 
HUMORBSQUE,  ETC. 


^RPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


STAR  DUST 

Copyright,  1921,  by  Harper  &  Brother* 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


STAR   DUST 


CHAPtER  I 

WHEN  Lilly  Becker  eked  out  with  one  hand 
that  most  indomitable  of  pianoforte  selec 
tions,  Rubinstein's  "Melody  in  F,"  her  young  mind 
had  a  habit  of  transcending  itself  into  some  such 
illusory  realm  as  this :  Springtime  seen  lacily  through 
a  phantasmagoria  of  song.  A  very  floral  sward. 
Fountains  that  tossed  up  coloratura  bubbles  of 
sheerest  aria  and  a  sort  of  Greek  frieze  of  you  h 
attitudinized  toward  herself.  : 

This  frieze  was  almost  i-  1  of 

Estelle  Foote,  a  successfi 
dacy  for  the  sponge-and-basiri  r.aouiu. 
Prothero,  infallible  of  spitball  aim ;   Miss  Lare  T  ith 
her  spectacles  very  low  on  her  nose  and  a  powdei 
of  chalk  dust  down  her  black  alpaca;  Flora  Kemble 
with  infinitely  fewer  friendship  bangles  on  her  si. 
link  bracelet;  Roy  Kemble,  kissing  her  yellow,  rat 
than  yanking  her  brown,  braids. 

And  then  suddenly,  apropos  of  nothing  except 
the  sweet  ache  of  Lilly's  little  soul,  the  second  move 
ment  would  freeze  itself  into  a  proscenium  arch  of 
music,  herself,  like  a  stalagmite,  its  slim  center. 

At  this  point,  "Melody  in  F"  veils  itself  in  a  mist 
of  arpeggios,  and  Mrs.  Becker,  who  invariably,  during 
the  after-school  practice  hour,  sat  upstairs  with  Mrs. 


4  STAR  DUST 

Kemble  in  her  sunny  second-story  back,  would  call 
down  through  the  purposely  opened  floor  register. 

"Lilly,  not  so  fast  on  that  part." 

"Yes'm." 

Were  it  not  that  the  salient  spots,  the  platform 
places  in  experience,  are  floored  over  in  little  more  or 
less  identical  mosaics  of  all  the  commonplace  day 
by  days,  Lilly  Becker,  at  the  rented-by-the-month 
piano  in  her  parents'  back  parlor  in  Mrs.  Schum's 
boarding  house,  her  two  chestnut  braids  rather  pre 
cociously  long  and  thick  down  her  back,  her  mother 
rocking  rhythmically  overhead,  were  spurious  to 
this  narrative. 

Yet  how  much  more  potently  than  by  the  mere 
exposition  of  it  and  because  you  have  looked  in  on 
the  nine-year-old  chemistry  of  a  vocal  and  blond 
dream  in  the  dreaming,  are  you  to  know  the  Lilly  of 
seventeen,  who  secretly  and  unsuccessfully  washed  her 
hair  in  a  solution  of  peroxide,  and  at  eighteen,  through 
the  patent  device  of  a  megaphone  inserted  through 
a  plate-glass  window,  was  singing  to —  But  anon. 

There  was  a  game  Lilly  used  to  play  on  the  front 
stairs  of  Mrs.  Schum's  boarding  house,  winter 
evenings  after  dinner.  She  and  Lester  Eli,  who,  at 
seventeen,  was  to  drown  in  a  pleasure  canoe;  Snow 
Horton — clandestinely  present — daughter  of  a  neigh 
borhood  dentist  and  forbidden  to  play  with  the 
"boarding-house  children";  Flora  and  Roy  Kemble, 
twins;  and  little  Harry  Calvert,  who  would  creep  up 
like  a  dirty  little  white  mouse  from  the  basement 
kitchen. 

"C"— hissed  sibilantly. 

' '  Can't  carry  cranky  cats ! ' ' 

"No  fair,  Snow;  that  doesn't  make  sense." 

"Does." 


STAR  DUST  5 

" Your  turn,  Roy." 
"Z." 

' ' No  fair.    Nothing  begins  with  ' Z.' " 

LILLY:  "Does  so.  Z!  Z — -zounds — zippy — -zin- 
gorella— zoe!  Zoe!" 

By  similar  strain  of  alliterative  classification,  Mrs. 
Schum's  boarding  house  might  have  been  indexed 
as  Middle  West,  middle  class,  medium  price,  and 
meager  of  meal. 

Poor,  callous-footed  Mrs.  Schum,  with  her  spotted 
bombazine  bosom  and  her  loosely  anchored  knob  of 
gray  hair!  She  was  the  color  of  cold  dish  water  at 
that  horrid  moment  when  the  'grease  begins  to  float, 
her  hands  were  corroded  with  it,  and  her  smile  some 
how  could  catch  you  by  the  heartstrings,  which 
jjmiles  have  no  right  to  do.  How  patiently  and  how 
drearily  she  padded  through  these  early  years  of 
Lilly's  existence.  There  were  rubber  insets  in  her 
shoes  which  sagged  so  that,  her  ankles  seemed  actually 
to  touch  the  floor  from  the  climbing  upstairs  and 
downstairs  on  her  missionary  treadmill  of  the  cracked 
slop  jar;  the  fly  in  the  milk;  the  too-tepid  shaving 
water;  the  bathroom  monopoly;  the  infant  cacoph 
ony  of  midnight  colic;  salt  on  the  sleety  sidewalk, 
the  pasted  handkerchief  against  a  front  window  pane; 
ice  water.  Towels.  Towels.  Towels. 

And  how  saucily  after  school  would  Lilly  plant  her 
self  down  in  the  subterranean  depths  of  the  kitchen. 
'Mrs.  Schum,  mamma  says  to  give  me  a  piece  of 
bread  and  butter." 

With  her  worried  eyes  Mrs.  Schum  would  smile 
and  invariably  hand  out  a  thick  slice,  thinly  buttered. 
More  butter,  mamma  said." 

hat's  plenty,  dearie;   too  much  isn't  good  for 
little  girls'  complexions." 


6  STAR  DUST 

"Morebut-ter!" 

"Here,  then." 

Scalloping  the  air  with  it  before  little  Harry's 
meek  eyes:  "You  can't  have  any.  You  don't  pay 
board.  We  do!" 

"My  Mamma- Annie  she  paid  board  once.  Uh- 
huh!  my  Mamma-Annie  she's  an  angel  in  heaven 
and  you  aren't.  Uh-huh!"  This  from  little  Harry, 
who  was  far  too  pale  and  wore  furiously  stained  blouses. 

"But  your  mamma- Annie's  dead  now.  You  can't 
be  a  real  live  angel  without  being  dead  first,  and  I'd 
rather  be  me." 

"Lilly,  aren't  you  ashamed?  You  run  on  now,  or 
I'll  tell  your  mamrna.  Poor  little  Harry  can't  help  it 
he's  an  orphan  with  only  his  old  gramaw  to  look  after 
him .  You  a  great  big  girl  with  your  mother  and  father 
to  do  for  you.  It's  not  nice  to  be  against  Harry." 

"Well,  what  was  I  saying  so  much,  Mrs.  Schum? 
Can  I  help  it  he  says  she's  an  angel  ?  Here,  Harry, 
you  can  have  it.  Mamma's  got  a  whole  basket  of 
apples  in  the  closet  and  a  dozen  oranges.  Honest, 
take  it,  I'm  not  hungry." 

He  would  mouth  into  it,  round  eyes  gazing  at  her 
above  the  rim  of  crust. 

There  were  times  again  when  Lilly  would  bare  her 
teeth  and  crunch  them  in  a  paroxysm  of  rage  and 
tyranny  over  little  Harry.  She  would  delight  in 
making  herself  terrible  to  him,  pinch  and  tower  over 
the  huddle  of  him  with  her  hands  hooked  inward 
like  talons.  His  meekness  hurt  her  to  frenzy,  and 
because  she  was  ashamed  of  tears  she  clawed. 

"Oh,  you !  You !  You  just  make  me  feel  like — I 
don't  know  what." 

"Ouch!   Lilly,  you  pinch!" 

"Well,  then,  don't  always  hold  your  head  off  to 


STAR  DUST  7 

one  side  like  somebody  was  going  to  hit  you.  I  hate 
it.  It  makes  me  feel  like  wanting  to  hit  you." 

"I  won't." 

* { You  aren't  such  a  goody-goody.  You  steal.  You 
stole  some  balls  of  twine  my  papa  brought  home  from 
his  factory.  Mamma  says  you  got  it  behind  your 


ears." 


"I  haven't  anything  ^behind  my  ears." 

"Oh,  silly!  Everything  isn't  there  just  because 
you  say  it's  there.  If  I  close  my  eyes  just  a  little 
eeny,  I  can  see  birds  and  fountains  and  a  beautiful 
stage,  and  me  with  my  hair  all  gold,  and  a  blue  satin 
train  that  kicks  back  when  I  walk,  and  all  the  music 
in  the  world  winding  around  me  like — like  every 
thing — like  smoke.  But  it  isn't  truly  there,  silly, 
except  inside  of  me." 

"Haw." 

"I'm  going  to  be  the  beautifulest  singer  in  the 
world  some  day,  with  a  voice  that  goes  as  high  as 
anything,  and  be  on  the  stage,  and  you  can't  even  be 
on  it  with  me." 

'N'  I'm  going  to  work  in  a  butcher  shop  and  give 
gramaw  all  the  meat  she  wants  without  even  putting 
it  down  in  the  book." 

"You  steal." 

"Don't." 


"Do." 


"And  I  won't  ever  have  to  touch  the  meat  if  it's 
got  blood  on." 

"Fraidy,  scared  of  a  little  blood."  Then  with 
not  a  great  deal  of  relevance,  "I  could  have  the 
yellowest  hair  in  the  world  if  I  wanted  to." 

"'How?" 

"Oh,  by  just  wanting  to." 

"Nit." 


8  STAR  DUST 

"Could." 

"Your  mamma's  calling  you." 

' '  Lil-ly ,  come  practice. ' ' 

"I'm  coming."  To  Harry,  "I  can  do  something 
you  can't  do." 

"What?" 

"Hop  up  six  stairs  on  one  foot." 

"Dare  you." 

Ankle  cupped  in  her  hand,  brown  braids  bobbing, 
she  would  thus  essay  two,  three,  even  four  steps 
of  staggering  ascent,  collapsing  then  against  the 
banister. 

"Ouch!" 

"Told  you  so." 

"Well,  I  nearly  did." 

"Oh,  you  nearly  do  everything." 
"I  can't  help  it  if  my  foot  isn't  strong  enough  to 
hold  me." 

"Lil-ly,  don't  let  me  have  to  call  you  again." 

"I'm  coming,  mamma."  And  then  for  a  final  tan 
talizing  gleam  of  her  little  self  across  the  banister, 
"Last  tag." 


CHAPTER  II 

ONE  wall  of  the  Becker  back  parlor  was  darkly 
composed  of  walnut  folding  doors  dividing  it 
from  the  front-parlor  bachelor  apartment  of  Mr. 
Hazzard,  city  salesman  for  the  J.  D.  Nichols  Fancy 
Grocery  Supply  Company,  his  own  horse  and  buggy 
furnished  by  the  firm. 

It  was  Mrs.  Becker's  habit  during  his  day-long 
absence,  in  fact  just  as  soon  as  her  acute  ear  detected 
the  scraping  departure  of  his  tin-tired  wheels  from 
the  curb,  to  fling  back  these  folding  doors  for  the 
rush  of  daylight  and  sense  of  space,  often  venturing 
in  beside  the  front  window  with  a  bit  of  sewing  and 
pottering  ever  so  discreetly  at  the  sample  packages 
of  fine  teas,  jars  of  perfectly  conserved  asparagus, 
peas,  and  olives  spread  out  on  his  mantelpiece  and 
fingering,  again  ever  so  discreetly,  the  neatly  ripped 
stack  of  letters  on  the  dresser.  Once,  and  despite 
vlrs.  Becker's  frantic  swoop  to  save  it,  a  piece  of 
pressed  flower  fell  out  from  one  of  these  envelopes 
in  the  handling,  crumbling  to  bits  as  it  fluttered  to 
the  floor. 

Next  morning  the  folding  doors  refused  to  part  to 
touch,  an  eye  to  the  keyhole  discovering  it  clogged 
with  key.  Then  Lilly  began  music  lessons  and  the 
newly  rented  upright  piano  was  drawn  up  against 
these  doors. 

Never  were  fingers  more  recalcitrant  at  musical 
chores.  The  Bach  "  Inventions  "  were  weary  digital 
gyrations  against  the  slow-moving  hands  of  the  alarm 


io  STAR  DUST 

clock  perched  directly  in  her  line  of  vision.  Czerny, 
too,  was  punctuated  with  quick  little  forays  between 
notes,  into  a  paper  bag  of  "baby  pretzels"  at  the 
treble  end  of  the  piano,  often  as  not  lopping  over  on 
the  keyboard. 

But  with  the  plunge  into  brilliant  but  faulty  exe 
cution  of  one  of  her  "pieces,"  her  little  face  would 
flood  over  and  tighten  up  into  the  glyptic  immobility 
of  a  cameo  and  her  toes  curl  as  they  pressed  the 
pedals. 

"The  Storm  King"  of  the  Parlor  Pianoforte 
Series  was  a  favorite.  Dashing  her  quickly  memo 
rized  way  through  it,  she  would  follow  closely  the 
brief  printed  synopsis  on  the  cover  page  .  .  .  suddenly 
the  clouds  gather,  a  bird  carols,  a  faint  rumble  is  heard 
in  the  distance  (it  is  important  that  the  student  practice 
this  base  tremolo  with  left  hand  only),  the  rush, of  ap 
proaching  wind  mingles  with  the  nearing  roll  of  thunder, 
accompanied  by  occasional  flashes  of  lightning.  .  .  . 

The  red  would  run  up  into  Lilly's  face  and  her 
hands  churn  the  white  keys  into  a  curdled  froth  cf 
dissonance. 

"Lil-ly,  not  so  fast.  Play  'Selections  from  Faust' 
now,  slowly,  and  count,  the  way  Miss  Lee  said  you 
should." 

Another  favorite  was  the  just  published  "Nar 
cissus"  of  Nevin.  Its  cross-hand  movement  was  a 
phillipic  to  her  ever-ready -to-ferment  fancy.  Head 
back  and  gaze  into  the  scroll-and-silk  front  of  the 
piano,  the  melody  would  again,  like  a  curve  of  gold, 
shape  itself  into  the  lovely  form  of  a  proscenium 
arch. 

"Lilly,  that  is  beautiful.  Play  the  tune  part  over 
again." 

The  tingling  that  would  actually  gooseflesh  her 


STAR  DUST  ii 

would  die  down  as  surely  as  a  ringing  crystal  tumbler, 
had  she  closed  her  warm  little  hand  over  it. 

"Mamma,"  her  voice  directed  upward  toward  the 
open  register,  "can  I — may  I  go  out  on  my  tricycle?" 

"No." 

"I've  only  ten  minutes  yet,  mamma.  I'D  make 
them  up  to-morrow." 

"No,  I  don't  intend  to  pay  Miss  Lee  fifty  cents  a 
lesson  so  you  can  go  out  and  ride  on  your  tricycle. 
You  bothered  me  for  the  lessons,  so  now  you  prac 
tice.  Work  on  *  Narcissus '  so  you  can  play  it  for  your 
father  to-night." 

"Oh,  mom,  please." 

"I  don't  care.  Go!  Only  put  on  your  hat  and  don't 
let  me  see  you  riding  around  on  Taylor  Avenue." 

"No'm." 
2 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  St.  Louis  of  Lilly's  little  girlhood,  sprung  se 
thrivingly  from  the  left  bank  of  the  Mississippi 
and  builded  on  the  dead  mounds  of  a  dead  past,  was 
even  then  inexplicably  turning  its  back  to  its  fine 
river  frontage;  stretching  in  the  form  of  a  great 
adolescent  giant,  prone,  legs  flung  to  the  west  and 
full  of  growing  pains,  arms  outstretched  and  curving 
downward  in  a  great  north-and-south  yawn. 

Taylor  Avenue  (then  almost  the  city's  edge,  and 
which  now  is  a  girdle  worn  high  about  its  gigantic 
middle)  petered  out  into  violently  muddy  and  un 
made  streets  and  great  patches  of  unimproved 
vacant  lots  that  in  winter  were  gaunt  with  husks. 

A  pantechnicon  procession  of  the  more  daring, 
shot  with  the  growing  pains,  was  grading  and 
building  into  the  vast  clayey  seas  west  of  Kings- 
highway,  but  for  the  most  part  St.  Louis  contained 
herself  gregariously  enough  within  her  limits,  con 
tent  in  those  years  when  the  country  rang  hollowly 
to  the  cracked  ring  of  free  silver  to  huddle  under  the 
same  blanket  with  her  smoke-belching  industries. 

A  picture  postcard  of  u  brewery,  piled  high  like  a 
castle  and  with  stables  of  Augean  collosity,  rose  from 
the  south  tip  of  the  city  to  the  sour-malt  supremacy 
of  the  world;  boots,  shoes,  tobacco,  and  street  cars 
bringing  up  by  a  nose,  Eads  Bridge,  across  the 
strong  breast  of  the  Mississippi,  flinging  roads  of 
commerce  westward  ho. 

For  one  rapidly  transitional  moment   street-car 


STAR  DUST  13 

traffic  in  St.  Louis  stood  in  three  simultaneous  stages 
of  its  lepidopterous  development :  a  caterpillar  horse- 
car  system  crawled  north  and  south  along  Jefferson 
Avenue,  glass  coin  box  and  the  backward  glance  of 
the  driver,  in  lieu  of  conductor.  A  cable-car  system 
ready  to  burst  its  chrysalis  purred  the  length  of 
Olive  Street,  and  a  first  electric  car,  brightly  painted, 
and  with  a  proud  antenna  of  trolley,  had  already 
whizzed  out  Washington  Avenue. 

When  Lilly  was  twelve  years  old  her  walk  to  school 
was  across  quite  an  intricacy  of  electric-car  tracks, 
and  on  rainy  days,  out  of  a  small  fund  of  children's 
car  tickets  laid  by  in  Mrs.  Becker's  glove  box  for 
just  that  contingency,  she  would  ride  to  and  from 
school,  changing  cars  with  a  drilled  precision  at 
Vandaventer  and  Finney  Avenues. 

For  the  first  few  of  these  adventures  Mrs.  Becker 
wrote  tiny  notes,  to  be  handed  out  by  Lilly  along 
with  her  street-car  ticket: 

Conductor,  please  let  this  little  girl  off  at  Jefferson  Avenue; 
she  wants  to  change  cars  for  the  Pope  School. 

One  day  by  some  mischievous  mischance  Mrs. 
Schum's  board  receipt  found  its  way  into  Lilly's 
little  pocketbook: 

Received  of  Mrs.  Ben  Becker,  forty-five  dollars  for  one 
month's  board  for  three. 

"Aw,"  said  the  conductor,  thrusting  it  back  at 
her,  "ask  your  mamma  to  tell  her  troubles  to  a  po 
liceman,  little  girl." 

From  that  day  Lilly  rebelled. 

"Guess  I  can  find  my  way  to  school  without 
having  to  carry  a  note  like  a  baby." 

"But,  Lilly,  you  might  get  mixed  up." 


i4  STAR  DUST 

"Nit." 

"Don't  sass  me  that  way  or  I'll  tell  your  father 
when  he  comes  home  to-night." 

A  never  quite  bursting  cloud  which  hung  over  the 
entire  of  Lilly's  girlhood  was  this  ever-impending 
threat  which  even  in  its  rare  execution  brought  forth 
no  more  than  a  mild  and  rather  sad  rebuke  from  a 
mild  and  rather  sad  father,  and  yet  which  was 
certain  to  quell  any  rising  rebellion. 

"I  notice  you  never  get  sassy  or  ugly  to  your 
father,  Lilly.  I  do  all  the  stinting  and  make  all  the 
sacrifices  and  your  father  gets  all  the  respect." 

"Mamma,  how  can  you  say  that!" 

"Because  it's  a  fact.  To  him  it  is  always,  'Yes, 
sir,  no,  sir.'  I'm  going  to  tell  him  a  few  things  when 
he  comes  home  to-night  of  what  I  go  through  with 
all  day  in  his  absence.  Elocution  lessons !  Just  you 
ask  him  for  them  yourself." 

"Oh,  mamma,  you  promised!" 

"Well,  I  will,  but  I  oughtn't." 

Every  evening  until  long  after  Lilly's  dresses  had 
descended  to  her  shoe  tops  and  until  the  ritual  came 
to  have  a  distinctly  ridiculous  aspect,  there  took 
place  the  one  pleasantry  in  which  Lilly  and  her 
father  ever  indulged. 

About  fifteen  minutes  before  seven,  three  staccato 
rings  would  come  at  the  front-door  bell.  At  her 
sewing  or  what  not,  Mrs.  Becker  would  glance  up 
with  birdlike  quickness. 

"That's  papa!"  And  Lilly,  almost  invariably 
[curled  over  a  book,  would  jump  up  and  take  stand 
tensely  against  the  wall  so  that  when  the  room  door 
opened  it  would  swing  back,  concealing  her. 

In  the  frame  of  that  open  doorway  Mrs.  Becker 
and  her  husband  would  kiss,  the  unexcited  matri- 


b 


STAR  DUST  15 

monial  peck  of  the  taken-for-granted  which  is  as 
sane  to  the  taste  as  egg,  and  as  flat,  and  then  the 
night-in-and-night-out  question  that  for  Lilly,  rigid 
there  behind  the  door,  never  failed  to  thrill  through 
her  in  little  darts. 

" Where  is  Lilly,  Carrie?" 

MRS.  BECKER  (assuming  an  immediate  mask  of 
vacuity) :  "Why,  I  don't  know,  Ben.  She  was  here  a 
minute  ago." 

"Well,  well,  well!"  looking  under  the  bed,  under 
the  little  cot  drawn  across  its  baseboard  and  into  a 
V  of  a  back  space  created  by  a  catacorner  bureau. 
"Well,  well,  well!  What  could  have  happened  to 
her?" 

At  this  juncture  Lilly,  fairly  titillating,  would 
burst  out  and  before  his  carefully  averted  glance 
fling  wide  her  arms  in  self -revelation. 

"Here  I  am,  papa!" 

"Well,  I'll  declare,  so  she  is!"  lifting  her  by  the 
armpits  for  a  kiss.  "Well,  well,  well!" 

"Papa,  I  got  ninety  in  arithmetic.  I'd  have  got  a 
hundred,  but  I  got  the  wrong  common  denominator." 

"That's  right,  Lilly.  Keep  up  well  in  your 
studies.  Remember,  knowledge  is  power." 

"Get  your  father's  velveteen  coat,  Lilly." 

"Papa,  Ella  McBride  kisses  boys." 

"Then  don't  ever  let  me  hear  of  your  associating 
with  her.  The  little  girl  that  doesn't  keep  her  own 
self-respect  cannot  expect  others  to  respect  her." 

"And  you  ought  to  see,  papa,  she  always  rides 
her  tricycle  down  past  Eddie  Posner's  house  on 
Delmar  just  to  show  herself  off  to  him." 

Lilly,  go  wash  your  hands  for  supper.    How  is 
usiness,  Ben?" 

Nothing  extra,  Carrie." 


16  STAR  DUST 

"Oh,  I  get  so  tired  hearing  a  poor  mouth.  Some 
times  I  could  just  scream  for  wanting  to  do  things 
we  are  not  in  a  position  to  do.  Go  housekeeping, 
for  instance,  have  a  little  home  of  my  own — " 

"Now,  now,  little  woman,"  at  the  invariable 
business  of  flecking  his  neat  gray  business  suit  with 
a  whisk  broom,  "you  got  up  on  the  wrong  side  of 
bed  this  morning.  Lilly,  suppose  you  shine  papa's 
spectacles  for  him." 

"There  is  the  supper  bell.  Quick,  Ben  and  Lilly, 
before  the  Kembles." 

The  dining  room,  directly  over  the  basement 
kitchen,  jutted  in  an  ell  off  the  rear  of  the  house  so 
that  from  the  back  parlor  it  was  not  difficult  to  pre 
cede  the  immediate  overhead  response  to  that  bell. 
A  black-faced  genii  of  the  bowl  and  weal,  in  a  very 
dubiously  white-duck  coat  thrust  on  hurriedly  over 
clothing  reminiscent  of  the  day's  window  washing 
and  furnace  cinders,  held  attitude  in  among  the 
small  tables  that  littered  the  room.  There  were 
four.  A  long  table  seating  ten  and  punctuated  by 
two  sets  of  cruets,  two  plates  of  bread,  and  two  white- 
china  water  pitchers;  Mr.  Hazzard's  tiny  square  of 
individual  table,  a  perpetual  bottle  of  brown  medi 
cine  beside  his  place.  The  Kernbles  also  enjoyed 
segregation  from  the  mother  table,  the  family  invari 
ably  straggling  in  one  by  one.  For  the  Beckers  was 
reserved  the  slight  bulge  of  bay  window  that  looked 
out  upon  the  Suburban  street-car  tracks  and  a  bat 
talion  of  unpainted  woodsheds.  A  red  geranium, 
potted  and  wrapped  around  in  green  crepe  tissue 
paper,  sprouted  center  table,  a  small  bottle  of  jam 
and  two  condiments  lending  further  distinction. 
A  napkin  with  self-invented  fasteners  dangled 
from  Mr.  Becker's  chair,  and  beside  Lilly's  place 


STAR  DUST  17 

a  sterling  silver  and  privately  owned  knife  and  fork, 
monogr  ammed . 

To  Mr.  Becker,  the  negro  race  was  largely  and 
genetically  christened  Gawge,  to  be  addressed  solely 
in  native  patois.  4 

"Evenin',  Gawge." 

"Evenin',  Mistah  Beckah." 

4 'George,  are  you  going  to  take  good  care  of  my 
husband  to-night?  That  piece  of  steak  you  served 
him  yesterday  wasn't  fit  to  eat." 

"Law  now,  Mis*  Beckah,  kin  I  help  it  if  de  best  de 
kitchen  has  ain't  none  too  good?" 

"Don't  tell  me!  I  saw  the  piece  you  brought 
Mr.  Kemble." 

"Now,  Carrie  .  .  ." 

"What  have  we  to-night,  George?" 

"Fried  steak,  lamb,  or  corn'-beef  hash." 

"Bring  us  steak,  and  if  it  isn't  tender,  tell  Mrs, 
Schum  for  me  that  right  back  downstairs  it  goes! 
A  little  piece  of  lamb  on  the  side  in  case  Miss 
Lilly  don't  like  the  steak,  and  bring  up  a  dish  of 
those  sweet  pickles.  You  know,  under  the  tray 
the  way  you  always  do.  There's  a  pair  of  Mr. 
Becker's  old  shoes,  good  as  new,  waiting  to  be  given 
away." 

"Carrie!" 

"Miss  Lilly  loves  pickles.    George,  do  as  I  say." 

"Carrie!" 

"Law!  Mistah  Beckah,  I  knows  Mis'  Beckah  and 
her  ways.  Law!  I  doan  take  no  offense." 

"I  wish  if  you  want  extras,  Carrie,  you  would  buy 
them.  It  is  a  darn  shame  to  make  yourself  so  small 
before  the  other  boarders." 

"I  haven't  as  much  money  as  you  have,  Ben 
Becker.  I'm  not  ashamed  to  ask  for  my  money's 


i8  STAR  DUST 

worth.  Lilly,  haven't  I  told  you  not  to  talk  on  your 
fingers  at  meals?" 

This  form  of  digital  communication  between  the 
children  of  the  boarding  house  seemed  to  break  out 
in  its  most  virulent  form  at  dinner.  In  spite  of  a 
sharp  consensus  of  parental  disapproval,  there  was 
a  continual  flashing  of  code  between  Lilly,  the 
Kemble  twins,  and  Lester  Eli  at  the  larger  table. 

"Ben,  will  you  speak  to  Lilly?    She  won't  mind 


me." 


f     ."Lilly!" 

"Yes,  sir,"  immediately  subsiding  to  a  contempla 
tion  of  the  geranium. 

Poker  played  for  penny  stakes  was  a  favorite 
after-dinner  pastime.  A  group  including  Mrs.  Eli, 
the  Kembles,  and  Mr.  Hazzard  would  gather  in  the 
Becker  back  parlor,  Mrs.  Becker,  relieved  of  corsets 
and  in  a  dark-blue  foulard  teagown  shotted  all 
over  with  tiny  pink  rosebuds,  presiding  over  a 
folding  table  with  a  glass  bowl  of  the  "baby  pretzels  " 
in  its  center. 

The  children  meanwhile  would  forgather  on  the 
front  hall  stairs,  the  peaked  flare  of  an  olive  of  gas 
light  that  burned  through  a  red  glass  globe  with 
warts  blown  into  it,  bathing  the  little  group  in  a  sort 
of  greasy  fluid.  Roy  and  Flora  Kemble,  Snow  Hor- 
ton,  Lester  Eli,  and  Stanley  Beinenstock,  racked 
with  bronchitis  and  lending  an  odor  of  creosote, 
Lilly,  and  even  Harry  in  his  poor  outlandish 
blouse. 

"Snow,  tell  us  a  story;  you're  the  oldest." 

Snow  was  full  of  lore;  would  invoke  inspiration 
with  a  very  wide  and  very  blue  gaze  up  to  the 
ceiling,  her  thin  hands  clasping  her  thin  neck. 

"Once  upon  a  time — once  upon  a  time  there  was 


STAR  DUST  19 

the  most  beautiful  girl  in  all  the  world  and  her 
name  was — " 

"Aw,  give  us  one  about  boys." 

LILLY:  "You  shut  up,  Roy  Kemble.  I  guess 
Snow  can  tell  a  girl  story  if  she  wants  to.  Go  on, 
Snow,  'once  upon  a  time  there  was  the  most  beau 
tiful  girl  in  all  the  world '  and  she  had  honey -colored 
curls  and— " 

' '  I  didn't  say  she  had  honey-colored  curls.  Honey ! 
Who  ever  heard  of  a  girl  having  honey  curls?" 

"Well,  she  had." 

"Didn't." 

"Did." 

" — and  her  name  was — was — Gladys." 

"Oh  no,  Snow,  call  her—" 

"I  think  Gladys  is  just  a  beautiful  name  for  a 
girl,"  ventured  Flora  Kemble  on  this  occasion.  "I 
like  Elsie,  too.  I  think  Elsie  Dinsmore  is  my  favorite 


name." 


"'Elsie  Dinsmore!"  flared  Lilly.  "Girls  aren't 
pokey  like  her  any  more." 

Thus  diverted,  there  ensued  a  quick  confetti  of 
flung  opinions. 

"Minn  is  a  pretty  name." 

"That's  because  you're  stuck  on  Minnie  Duganne 
in  your  class.  Oh-oh,  Roy  is  stuck  on  Minnie 
Duganne!" 

"Arabella — I  just  love  that  name.  Don't  you, 
Lilly?" 

"If  I  was  a  girl,  I  would  be  named  Mamma- 
Annie." 

"Shut  up,  Harry;  and,  say,  you  better  take  back 
that  can  opener.  You  stole  it  off  Mr.  Hazzard's 
dresser." 

"What  is  your  favorite  name,  Lilly?" 


20  STAR  DUST 

Her  eyes  on  the  warts  blown  into  the  glass  globe, 
hugging  her  knees  in  their  sturdy  ribbed  stockings, 
her  smooth  brown  hair  enhancing  her  clean  kind  of 
prettiness,  Lilly  gazed  up  roundly. 

"I  choose,"  she  said,  mouthing  grandiloquently, 
her  little  pink  tongue  waving  like  a  clapper — "I 
choose — choose — ah — Zoe ! ' ' 

"That  isn't  a  name!" 

"Tisso." 

"Who  ever  heard  of  a  girl  named  Zoe!  You  never 
did  yourself." 

"I  know  I  never  did,  Roy  Kemble,  but  just  the 
same  I  think  it  is  the  most  beautiful  name  in  the 
world.  It  isn't  so  much  what  it  really  means ;  names 
don't  have  to  mean  anything — it's  what  it  feels  like 
it  means.  To  me  the  name  Zoe  feels  like  it  means — 
means — " 

CHORUS:  "She  don't  know  what  it  means.  She 
don't  know  what  it  means." 

"She  means  doe!  The  doe  in  the  zoo  at  Forest 
Park.  Hauh-hauh — her  favorite  name  is  Doe." 

"Zoe,"  repeated  Lilly,  her  eyes  in  a  trance  and 
lakes  of  reflected  vision.  "Zoe — it  means — it  means 
something — something  full  of  life.  Life — free — to 
me  Zoe  means  free!  Life!" 


CHAPTER  IV 

WHEN  Lilly  was  fourteen  she  graduated  from 
grade  school,  second  in  her  class. 

"It's  an  outrage,"  said  Mrs.  Becker.  "Miss  Lare 
always  did  pick  on  the  child." 

"I'd  rather  have  been  last  than  second,"  said 
Lilly,  trying  to  keep  firm  a  lip  that  would  tremble. 

"Never  mind,  Lilly,  you'll  have  the  prettiest 
graduation  dress  of  them  all.  I've  got  Katy  Stutz 
engaged  for  three  days  in  the  house.  A  girl  don't 
have  to  be  so  smart." 

"I'd  rather  have  the  valedictory  address  than — 
clothes,"  still  very  uncertain  of  lip. 

' '  Of  course.  That  is  because  for  a  child  you  certainly 
have  crazy  ideas.  Why  don't  you  nag  your  father  a 
little  with  what  you've  been  nagging  me  all  week?" 

"I —    Not  now,  mamma." 

"Why  not  now?  All  I've  got  to  say  about  it  is, 
if  he  is  willing,  I  am." 

"What  is  it?" 

"Tell  him,  Lilly." 

* '  I—  You  see,  papa,  I  thought  if  only  you  would 
let  me  begin  vocal  lessons,  now  that  I  am  going  to 
High  School.  Not  real  singing,  papa — I'm  too  young 
for  that — but  just  the  foundation  for  voice." 

"She  wants  to  study  with  Max  Rinehardt,  Ben. 
I  say  it  can't  do  any  harm  for  the  child  to  learn 
parlor  singing.  I  think  I  can  manage  it  at  a  dollar 
and  a  half  a  lesson.  The  elocution  I  say  'No*  to. 
We  don't  need  any  play-acting  in  the  family." 


22  STAR  DUST 

"Why — er — I'm  surprised,  Lilly,  that  you  should 
have  your  heart  set  on  that  kind  of  thing.  Seems 
to  me  a  young  girl  could  find  something  more 
worth  while  than  that.  Singers  never  amount  to 
much." 

44 Oh,  papa,  it's  what  I  want  most  in  the  world." 

4 'Let  her  have  them.  A  little  parlor  singing 
nelps  any  girl  with  the  young  men.  I  notice  you 
courted  me  from  the  choir.  If  she  waits  for  en 
couragement  from  you,  her  accomplishments  won't 
amount  to  a  row  of  pins." 

"You  see,  papa,  I'm  going  to  take  the  commercial 
course  at  High  and  learn  stenography  and  type 
writing,  so  it  will  just  balance  my  education  fine." 

"Well,  little  woman,  whatever  you  say." 

"You  know  what  I  say." 

"Don't  you  think  she  is  a  bit  too  young?" 

Mimetically:  "No,  I  don't  think  she's  a  bit  too 
young.  The  sooner  you  wake  up  to  the  fact  that 
your  daughter  is  growing  up,  the  better.  She's  a 
graduate  already  from  grammar  school." 

"Papa,  I'm  on  the  graduating  program." 

' '  For  what,  daughter  ? ' ' 

"A  piano  solo.    'Alice,'  with  variations." 

"Well,  Carrie,  if  that  is  the  way  you  feel  about 
it — if  you  think  those  kind  of  lessons  are  good  for 
her—" 

"That  is  the  way  I  feel  about  it." 

These  little  acid  places  occurring  somewhere  in 
almost  every  day  hardly  corroded  into  Lilly's  accus 
tomed  consciousness.  If  they  etched  their  way  at 
all  into  Mr.  Becker's  patient  kind  of  equanimity,  the 
utter  quietude  of  his  personality,  which  could  efface 
itself  behind  a  newspaper  for  two  or  even  three 
hours  at  a  time,  never  revealed  it.  His  was  the 


STAR  DUST  23 

stolidity  of  an  oak,  tickled  rather  than  assailed  by  a 
bright-eyed  woodpecker. 

" Little  woman"  he  liked  to  call  her  in  his  nearest 
approach  of  endearment,  although  it  must  have 
been  her  petite  quickness  rather  than  a  diminutive 
quality  that  earned  the  appellation.  Even  when  he 
had  wooed  her  in  Granite  City,  Missouri,  and  she 
had  sung  down  at  the  quiet-faced  youth  from  a 
choir  loft,  she  was  after  the  then  prevalent  form  of 
hourglass  girlish  loveliness.  Now  she  was  rather 
enormous  of  bust,  proudly  so,  and  wore  her  waist 
pulled  in  so  that  her  hips  sprang  out  roundly.  A 
common  gesture  was  to  place  her  hands  on  her 
hips,  press  down,  and  breathe  sharply  inward,  thus 
holding  herself  for  the  moment  from  the  steel  walls 
of  her  corsets.  Their  removal  immediately  after 
dinner  was  a  ritual  to  be  anticipated  during  the  day. 
She  would  sit  in  her  underbodice,  unhooked  of  them, 
sunk  softly  into  herself,  her  hands  stroking  her  tor 
tured  jacket  of  ribs  and  her  breath  flowing  deeper. 

"I  don't  believe  I'd  pull  in  quite  so  tight,  Carrie, 
if  I  were  you.  It  will  tell  on  your  health  some  day." 

"You  don't  catch  me  with  a  sloppy  figure.  I 
don't  give  a  row  of  pins  for  the  woman  without  some 
curve  to  her." 

To  Mrs.  Becker  a  row  of  pins  was  the  basest 
coinage  of  any  realm.  It  ran  through  her  speech  in 
pricking  idiom. 

She  was  piquant  enough  of  face,  quick-eyed,  and 
with  little  pointy  features  enhanced  by  a  psyche 
worn  as  emphatically  as  an  exclamation  point  on 
the  very  top  of  her  head.  On  eucher  or  matinee  days 
her  bangs,  at  the  application  of  a  curling  iron,  were 
worn  frizzed,  but  usually  they  were  pinned  back 
beneath  the  psyche  in  straight  brown  wisps. 


24  STAR  DUST 

As  she  grew  older,  Lilly  came  more  and  more  to 
resemble  her  father  in  a  certain  tight  knit  of  figure, 
length  of  limb,  and  quiet  gray  eyes  that  could  fill 
blackly  with  pupil  and  in  the  smooth,  straight, 
always  gleaming  brown  hair  growing  cleanly  and 
with  the  merest  of  widows'  peaks  off  her  forehead. 

At  fourteen  she  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
her  mother,  and  their  gloves  and  shirt  waists  were 
interchangeable.  One  really  distinguishing  loveli 
ness  was  her  complexion.  The  skin  flowed  over  her 
body  with  the  cool  fleshliness  of  a  pink  rose  petal. 
There  was  a  natural  shimmer  to  it,  a  dewiness  and 
a  pollen  of  youth  that  enveloped  her  like  a  caress. 

"  Looks  more  like  her  father,  if  she  looks  like 
either  of  them,"  Mrs.  Schum  was  fond  of  saying, 
"and  she  has  his  easy  disposition.  But  there  is  a 
child  who  runs  deep.  If  she  was  mine  I'd  educate 
her  to  be  something.  Ah  me,  if  only  my  Annie  hadn't 
lost  her  head  and  married,  she  had  the  makings, 
too." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Lilly's  resemblance  to  her 
parents  stopped  abruptly.  Her  first  year  in  High 
School,  a  course  in  natural  science  revealed  to  her 
the  term  "botanical  sport." 

"That's  what  I  am,"  she  determined,  with  youth's 
immediate  application  of  cosmos  to  self,  "a  botanical 
sport."  A  spontaneous  variation  from  the  normal 
type.  "Papa,  I  learned  to-day  that  I'm  a  sport." 

MRS.  BECKER:  "A  what?  That  is  a  genteel 
expression  for  a  young  girl  to  apply  to  herself !  That 
High  School  does  you  more  harm  than  good." 

"But,  mamma,  it's  a  term  used  in  botany.  A  term 
from  Darwin." 

"Darwin!  That's  a  fine  thing  to  teach  children  in 
school — that  they  come  from  monkeys !  No  wonder 


STAR  DUST  25 

children    haven't    any    respect    for    their    parents 
nowadays." 

"Well,  just  the  same  it  is  in  the  biology.  We're 
on  frogs  now.  You  ought  to  see  the  way  frogs  get 
born!" 

"In  my  day  children  weren't  taught  such  stuff. 
I'm  surprised,  Ben,  it's  allowed." 

Across  the  biology  of  life,  as  if  to  shut  out  the 
loathsome  facts  of  an  abattoir,  a  curtain  of  dreadful 
portent  was  drawn  before  Lilly's  clear  eyes. 

"When  baby  came,"  was  Mrs.  Becker's  insinua 
tion  for  the  naked  and  impolite  fact  of  birth. 

In  a  vague,  inchoate  sort  of  way,  Lilly  at  sixteen 
was  visualizing  nature  procreant  as  an  abominable 
woman  creature  standing  shank  deep  in  spongy 
swampland  and  from  behind  that  portentous  curtain 
moaning  in  the  agonized  key  of  Mrs.  Kemble. 

About  this  time  Mrs.  Kemble 's  third  child  was 
within  a  few  weeks  of  birth. 

"Mamma,  what  makes  Mrs.  Kemble  look  so 
funny!" 

"Hush,  Lilly.  Don't  you  ever  let  me  hear  you 
talk  like  that  again.  Little  girls  shouldn't  ask  such 
questions." 

One  night  shortly  after,  a  cry  that  tore  like  a  gash 
through  the  sleeping  boarding  house  roused  Lilly 
to  a  sitting  posture  on  her  little  cot  drawn  across  the 
baseboard  of  her  parents'  bed. 

Mamma !    Papa !    What  was  that  ? ' ' 

There  were  immediate  voices  and  running  up  and 
down  stairs  and  more  cries  that  beat  the  air  and 
Mrs.  Becker  already  up  and  clamoring  into  her 
kimono. 

Sh-h-h,  Lilly!    Go  back  to  sleep.     It  is  nothing 
Kemble  not  feeling  very  well.    I'll  run  up- 


26  STAR  DUST 

stairs  a  minute,  Ben.  See  that  Lilly  goes  back  to 
sleep." 

Until  the  break  of  day  Lilly  lay  tense  there  on 
her  little  cot,  toes  curled  in,  and  still  her  mother 
did  not  return.  Time  and  time  again  the  moans 
rose  to  shrieks  of  dreadful  supplication  that  set  her 
to  trembling  so  that  her  cot  rattled  against  the 
baseboard. 

"Kill  me!  God!  Put  me  out  of  it!  Please!  I 
can't  suffer  any  more!  Kill  me,  God!  Kill  me!" 

"Papa,  I— I'm  scared." 

"Go  to  sleep,  Lilly,"  said  her  father  from  the  pool 
of  darkness,  his  voice  rather  thin  and  sick.  "Go  to 
sleep  now,  like  a  good  girl." 

In  a  little  area  of  quiet  that  ensued,  she  did  drop 
healthily  off,  wakening  to  the  warmth  of  sunshine, 
her  father  already  departed,  her  mother  rocking  and 
sewing  beside  the  window. 

"Mamma,  why  didn't  you  wake  me?  I'll  be  late 
to  school." 

"You  won't  if  you  hurry  and — and,  Lilly,  what  do 
you  think?" 

"What,  mamma?" 

"The  stork  brought  Flora  and  Roy  the  dearest 
little  baby  sister  last  night.  They're  going  to  call 
her  Evelyn.  That's  why  Roy  and  Flora  went  to 
spend  the  week  with  their  Aunt  Emma,  so  they 
wouldn't  frighten  the  stork  away  when  he  flew  in 
with  it.  In  a  few  days  you  can  go  up  and  see  it. 
Isn't  that  nice,  Lilly?" 

Still  tousled  with  sleep,  but  the  red  rising  up  out 
of  the  yoke  of  her  nightgown,  Lilly  answered,  with 
averted  face,  "Yes,  mamma." 


CHAPTER  V 

THIS  episode  marked  the  beginning  of  what  was 
to  be  a  three  years'  refrain. 

"Ben,  we  must  go  housekeeping.  It's  an  outrage 
to  board,  with  a  girl  Lilly's  age.  Not  as  much  as  a 
parlor  for  her  to  bring  her  friends,  and  a  great  big 
girl  like  her  without  a  room  to  herself!  It's  not  even 
delicate." 

"Well,  Carrie,  I'm  willing." 

"I  know,  until  the  time  comes.  I  don't  forget  so 
easily  the  way  you  sighed  all  night  in  your  sleep  that 
time  I  came  near  renting  the  house  on  Delmar 
Avenue.  Where  is  the  money  coming  from!  The 
minute  that  old  business  down  there  earns  a  penny, 
right  back  into  it  go  the  earnings,  instead  of  drawing 
out  a  few  dollars  for  the  comfort  of  his  family,  like 
any  other  man  would." 

"But,  Carrie—" 

"There  is  not  another  woman  in  the  world  would 
stand  for  it  but  me.  A  woman  that  could  enjoy  a 
little  home  of  her  own  as  much  as  I !  What  do  I  get 
out  of  it,  I'd  like  to  know!  Stint.  Stint.  Stint. 
Shove  it  all  back  into  that  old  rope -and -twine 
business  down  there  that  doesn't  show  a  cent  of 
capital  when  you  take  stock  except  in  rope,  rope, 
rope,  until  I'd  like  to  hang  myself  with  some  of  it." 

"Now,  little  woman,  you  got  up  on  the  wrong  side 

of  bed  this  morning.     Just  hold  your  horses.     These 

are  tight  times,  I  admit,  but  we  have  our  health — " 

„  "I've  heard   that   since   I'm  married.     Health! 


28  STAR  DUST 

Suppose  we  have  got  our  health.  We  can't  thank  the 
business  for  that." 

"Lilly,  your  mother  certainly  got  up  on  the  wrong 
side  of  bed  this  morning,  didn't  she?" 

"Well,  it's  right  discouraging,  if  you  ask  me." 

"You're  all  right,  little  woman." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  trying  not  to  smile,  "I'm  all  right 
when  it  don't  cost  nothing  and  when  it  comes  to  the 
dirty  work  of  trying  to  make  two  ends  meet." 

"You're  certainly  a  splendid  manager.  No  one 
can  take  that  away  from  you." 

"Well,  I  wish  you  would  both  appreciate  it  a  little 


more." 


"We  do  appreciate  it,  don't  we,  Lilly?" 

"Yes,  papa." 

Her  second  year  in  High  School,  Lilly  was  kept  out 
for  five  weeks  by  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever. 

An  aversion  for  physical  shortcoming,  from  her 
mother's  occasional  headaches  to  the  mortally 
afflicted  Mr.  Hazzard  with  the  great  chronic  sore 
crisscrossed  with  court  plaster  at  the  end  of  one  of  his 
eyes,  amounted  in  Lilly  to  something  actually  Indian. 

"Oh,  mamma,  if  I  had  a  headache,  I  wouldn't  al 
ways  be  talking  about  it.  People  aren't  interested." 

"I'm  going  to  tell  your  father  when  he  comes 
home  to-night  what  a  sympathetic  daughter  I  have. 
If  ever  I  fall  sick  the  City  Hospital  will  be  the  place 
for  me.  When  I  see  the  way  that  Flora  Kemble 
carries  her  mother  around  and  the  way  my  own 
daughter  sympathizes  with  me.  If  I  don't  tell  your 
father  this  night!" 

It  was  this  queer  little  congenital  urge  that  kept 
Lilly  on  her  feet  for  two  weeks  after  the  malady 
had  hold  of  her.  With  a  stoicism  that  taxed  her 
cruelly,  she  would  march  smilingly  off  to  school,  a 


STAR  DUST  29 

bombardment  of  pains  shooting  through  her  head, 
her  hands  and  tongue  dry,  a  ball  and  chain  of 
inertia  dragging  at  her  ankles. 

* ''Lilly,  what  is  the  matter?  Why  don't  you  eat 
your  bread  and  butter  after  school  ?  Has  Mrs.  Schurn 
said  anything?" 

"No,  no,  mamma.     I'm  not  hungry,  that's  all." 

"Funny.  Open  the  closet.  There  is  a  basket  of 
oranges  behind  your  father's  overcoat,  and  a  bag  of 
baby  pretzels,  too." 

"Goodness!  mamma,  if  I  was  hungry,  I'd  eat." 

1 '  Don't  you  feel  well,  Lilly  ? " 

' '  Of  course  I  feel  well ,  mamma .    Why  shouldn ' 1 1  ? " 

But  next  day,  at  her  after-school  hour  of  prac 
tice,  a  small  discordant  crash  broke  suddenly  in 
upon  "Chaminade's  Scarf  Dance"  and  Mrs.  Becker's 
rhythmic  rocking  above.  Lilly  had  fainted,  with  her 
head  in  her  arms  and  face  down  among  the  keys. 

Followed  two  weeks  that  crowded  up  the  little 
back  parlor  with  anxiety,  the  tension  of  two  doctors 
in  consultation,  and  a  sense  of  hysteria  that  was 
always  just  a  scratch  beneath  the  surface  of  Mrs. 
Becker.  She  would  break  suddenly  into  loud  and 
unexpected  fits  of  crying,  crushing  her  palms  up 
against  her  mouth;  would  waken  from  a  light  doze 
beside  the  bed,  on  the  shriek  of  a  nightmare,  and  have 
literally  to  be  dragged  from  the  room.  She  harassed 
the  doctors  with  questions  that  only  the  course  of 
the  disease  could  answer. 

The  crisis  came  in  the  watches  of  the  night,  Lilly 
very  straight  and  very  white  and  light  of  breathing 
in  the  center  of  her  parents'  bed,  her  glossy  hair  in  a 
thick  plait  over  each  shoulder,  her  fine  white  and 
developed  chest  hardly  rising. 

"O  God!  help  me  to  live  this  night!    Ben!    Ben!" 


30  STAR  DUST 

"Carrie,  you're  only  making  yourself  sick  and 
not  helping  the  child." 

' '  My  baby !  My  beautiful  snow-white  baby !  The 
best  child  that  ever  lived !  Help  me  to  live  this  night !' ' 

"Carrie,  little  woman,  if  only  you  won't  take  on 
so.  There's  every  reason  to  hope  for  the  best.  The 
doctor  assured  us." 

"How  long  before  we  know?  Go  get  Doctor 
Allison  over.  Ask  Roy  Kemble  to  run  over  to 
Horton's  and  telephone  for  Doctor  Birch.  I  want 
them  here.  My  baby!" 

"Carrie,  Carrie,  haven't  they  told  you  time  and 
time  again  there  is  nothing  they  can  do  now?  Don't 
antagonize  Doctor  Birch  by  calling  him  over  here 
again  to-night.  Everything  is  being  done  for  the 
child.  Now  all  we  can  do  is  to  sit  and  wait  and  hope 
for  the  best." 

"You  don't  care!  You're  made  of  iron.  At  a 
time  like  this  you  stop  to  consider  the  doctors'  feel 
ings.  Mine  don't  count.  My  baby.  Get  well,  Lilly. 
Mamma's  been  cross  at  times,  but  never  again. 
We'll  do  everything  to  make  you  happy.  You  can 
read  your  eyes  out  and  mamma  won't  turn  out  the 
light  on  you.  Mamma  will  buy  you  books  and  a  box 
of  paints  and  a  little  bird's-eye-maple  room  all  your 
own.  Lilly,  mamma's  baby.  We're  going  house 
keeping — your  own  piano — your  own  room.  Aren't 
we,  Ben?  Aren't  we?" 

"Yes,  Carrie." 

"You  can  take  your  choice,  baby,  of  all  the  things 
you  want  to  be.  Mamma  won't  oppose  any  more,  or 
papa.  Opera  singing  if  you  want  it.  You  come  by  it 
naturally  from  my  choir  voice.  Whatever  you  say/ 
baby.  Even  an  actress  and  all  the  elocution  and 
singing  lessons  you — " 


STAR  DUST  3r 

"Carrie!" 

"Oh,  you  don't  care!  You're  only  her  father. 
What  does  a  father  know?  You  don't  care." 

Against  this  age-old  indictment  of  paternity,  and 
absolutely  without  precedent,  the  patient,  the  iron- 
gray  head  of  Mr.  Becker  fell  forward,  a  fearful  and 
silent  storm  of  sobs  beating  against  his  repression. 

Full  of  dumfounded  hysteria,  walking  on  her 
knees  around  the  bed  edge  to  him,  Mrs.  Becker 
drew  down  his  head  into  the  wreath  of  her  arms, 
kissing  into  it,  mingling  her  tears  with  his,  and 
tasting  their  anguish. 

"My  darling!  Ben — please,  darling!  I  say  a  lot 
of  things  I  don't  mean.  You  are  my  husband — and 
my  life.  Ben — don't!  I  can't  stand  it!  Ben!" 

At  six  o'clock  Lilly  opened  her  eyes.  They  were 
clear  and  cool  and  the  petal-like  quality  was  out  on 
her  skin. 

"Sweet  Alice,"  she  said,  "oh,  Sweet  Alice,  Ben 
Bolt,"  a  bit  of  dream  floating  up  with  her  like  sea 
weed  to  the  surface  of  consciousness.  ' '  Sweet  Alice. ' ' 

She  had  been  reading  Trilby,  surreptitiously  filched 
from  Mrs.  Kemble's  stack  of  novels. 

"Lilly— mamma's  Lilly!" 

"Where—     I—    Where—" 

"In  your  own  room,  sweetheart,  and  your  own 
mother  and  father  beside  you." 

' '  I  thought— Sweet  Alice—" 

"The  fever  is  gone  now,  Lilly.  You  won't  have 
any  of  those  thoughts  any  more.  Go  to  sleep  now. 
papa's  girl." 

"I  must  have  been  singing — 'Faust' — what  makes 
you  and  papa — so  angry — with  me — dears?" 

"We're  not,  Lilly.  Nothing  makes  us  angry  any 
more." 


32  STAR  DUST 

She  was  too  tired  to  smile. 

"I  kept  dreaming,  mamma,  that  my  hair  was  two 
big  honey-colored  braids  all  wound  up  with  pearls, 
like  Marguerite's  picture  in  Stories  of  the  Operas." 

4  *  Go  to  sleep,  Lilly,  like  a  good  child.  Our  girl  has 
got  too  much  sense  to  fill  her  head  up  with  such 


nonsense." 


"No,  no,  papa,  I  won't  have  common  sense.  I 
want  to  ride  up  to  meet  the  sun,  like  the  princess 
in—" 

"She  wants  to  what?  Are  you  sure  her  fever  is 
gone,  Carrie?" 

"Nonsense!  It  is  stuff  she  reads  in  her  fairy  tales. 
Yes,  darling,  anything  you  want." 

"You  know,  mamma — pearls — in  my  hair — " 

' '  Yes,  yes,  darling.     Sh-h-h !' ' 

"Mamma?" 

"Yes." 

"We're  middle-class,  aren't  we?" 

*  *  What  does  she  mean  ? ' ' 

"Middle-class  people,  I  mean.    You  know." 

"Why,  yes,  dear,  we're  middle-class.  I  guess  that 
is  what  you'd  call  it.  What  an  idea!" 

"Help  me." 

"Yes,  yes.  How,  baby?  The  doctor  will  be  here 
any—" 

"You  don't  know  what  I  mean.  No  matter  what 
I  say,  you  don't  know  what  I  mean.  Isn't  that 
terrible?" 

"Help  you  to  get  well,  that's  what  mamma  and 
papa  are  going  to  do." 

1 '  No,  no,  no !    Help  me — out — up ! ' ' 

Presently  Lilly  fell  asleep.  To  her  watching 
parents  her  light  and  regular  breathing  took  on  the 
meter  of  a  Doxology. 


CHAPTER  VI 

/CENTER  HIGH  SCHOOL,  the  city's  only  at  a 
^-*  time  when  half  a  million  souls  beat  up  like  sea 
around  it,  a  model  and  modern  institution  that  was 
presently  and  paradoxically  to  become  architectural 
paragon  for  what  to  avoid  in  future  high-school 
buildings,  was  again  within  street-car  distance,  ex 
cept  on  usually  bland  days,  when  Lilly  and  Flora 
Kemble  would  walk  home  through  Vandaventer 
Place,  the  first  of  those  short,  private  thoroughfares 
of  pretentious  homes  that  were  presently  to  run 
through  the  warp  of  the  city  like  threads  of  gold. 

On  these  homeward  walks  Flora  and  Lilly,  who 
referred  to  each  other  as  "my  chum,"  were  fond  of 
peripatetically  exchanging  the  views,  the  conscious 
ness,  and  the  sweetness  of  sixteen. 

"If  you  had  your  choice,  Lilly,  what  house  would 
you  select  for  yours  in  Vandaventer  Place?" 

"None." 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  want  to  live  in  between  stone  gates  with 
'No  Thoroughfare'  stuck  on  each  end." 

"You're  the  funniest  girl!  What  do  you  mean, 
'No  thoroughfare '  ?  Don't  you  want  to  be  exclusive 
and  private?" 

"Yes,  but  a  person  can  be  private  somewhere  high 
—high — not  just  stuck  between  gates  like  everybody 
else.  Sappho  always  sat  on  a  balcony  that  over 
looked  the  ^Egean  Sea." 

"Maybe  she  did,  and  she  jumped  off,  too,  but  I'm 


34  STAR  DUST 

not  talking  to-day's  Greek  history  lesson.  I'm  talk 
ing  about  regular  folks.  Between  the  gates  of  Vanda- 
venter  Place  would  be  good  enough  for  me.  Wouldn't 
I  just  love  to  be  mistress  over  one  of  these  houses  and 
give  parties  with  an  awning  stretched  out  over  the 
sidewalk!" 

4 'What  did  you  get  in  algebra,  Flora?" 

"Bplus.    And  you?" 

"B  minus." 

"Lilly  Becker,  that  is  the  fifth  B  minus  you've 
had  in  succession.  I'm  going  to  call  you  Lilly 
Minus." 

"If  she  hadn't  sprung  that  old  oral  exam  on  us — " 

"Oh,  if  ifs  and  ands  were  pots  and  pans!" 

Flora,  rather  freckly,  elbowy,  and  far  too  tall, 
was  none  the  less  about  to  be  pretty.  She  was  frailly 
fair,  like  her  mother,  and  could  already  throw  her 
blue  eyes  about  their  balls,  in  the  Esperanto  of 
coquetry.  She  had  a  treacherous  little  faculty  of 
appearing  never  to  study  and  yet  maintaining  an 
excellent  grade  of  scholarship. 

"You  get  me  to  do  all  sorts  of  things  with  you, 
Flora,  and  then  you  sneak  off  and  study  on  the  quiet 
and  leave  me  to  flunk  because  I  promised  you  I 
wouldn't  study,  either." 

"Why,  Lilly  Becker,  I  never  studied  one  minute 
for  that  algebra  quiz." 

"You  did  so!  When  I  went  downstairs  to  write 
in  my  Friendship  Book,  like  you  said  you  were 
going  to  do,  you  worked  your  algebra  instead.  Roy 
told  me." 

"Well,  if  I  was  as  pretty  as  you,  Lilly,  I  wouldn't 
ever  care  if  I  got  my  lessons  or  not,"  said  Flora,  to 
palliate. 

"Flora  Kemble,  I'm  not  pretty ! " 


STAR  DUST  35 

"You  are,  too.  Everybody  says  your  complexion 
is  like  peaches  and  cream,  and  look  at  mme,  all 
freckles." 

* '  Complexion,  huh !  If  I  had  your  yellow  hair,  you 
could  have  all  my  complexion." 

"Boys  hate  freckles  because  so  many  of  them 
have  them  themselves." 

"Always  boys.  Honestly,  you're  boy  -  crazy, 
Flora." 

"Well,  I  like  that.  Can  I  help  it  if  I  got  an 
invitation  and  you  didn't?  You  sat  right  next  to 
him  in  English  and  I  sat  two  whole  seats  away." 

A  cloud  no  larger  and  smudgier  than  a  high-school 
boy's  hand  had  dropped  its  first  shadow  between 
them.  Eugene  Bankhead,  son  of  the  credit  man  for 
Slocum-Hines,  the  city's  largest  wholesale  hardware 
firm,  had  suddenly,  out  of  this  clear  sky,  invited 
Flora  to  the  Thanksgiving  Day  football  game  be 
tween  Center  High  and  an  exclusive  local  academy. 
A  new  estate  felt,  rather  than  spoken,  quickened  the 
eye  and  authority  of  Flora.  A  sense  of  it  rode  on  the 
air  waves  between  them. 

"I  hate  boys." 

"How  do  you  know?  You've  never  seen  any 
except  my  brother  and  sneak-thief  Harry." 

"Papa  says  if  a  girl  begins  to  run  around  with 
boys  too  soon  it  makes  her  so  forward  that  by  the 
time  she's  eighteen  she's  too  old  and  faded — " 

"That's  old-fogy  talk." 

"You  mean  it's  old  fogy  for  girls  to  let  boys 
jam  everything  else  out  of  their  heads.  I'd  like 
to  see  the  boy  that  could  make  me  forget  my — my 
ambitions." 

"If  Eugene  had  asked  you  instead  of  me  you 
wouldn't  be  saying  that." 


36  STAR  DUST 

"Anyway,  I  hate  snips.    I  like  men — real  men." 

"Oh,  I  know.     You're  stuck  on  Lindsley!" 

A  violent  splash  of  red  and  a  highly  superlative 
denial  of  word  and  manner  laid  hold  of  Lilly. 

"Why,  Flora  Kemble!" 

"Look  at  her  blushing.  Oh,  what  I  know  about 
you!" 

"You  fibber.  I  think  he's  the  limit.  I  never  saw 
a  fellow  so  stuck  on  himself." 

"Oh,  I  know!  I  know  now  why  you  carry  home 
twice  as  many  books  as  you  used  to  since  he  got 
charge  of  the  library." 

"I'm  reading  the  Lady  of  the  Lake  and  you  know 
it.  That's  why  I  stopped  in  to-night." 

"I  know  why  you're  always  writing  compositions 
since  you  have  him  in  English.  Lilly's  stuck  on 
Lindsley." 

Tears  were  rare  with  Lilly,  but  a  tremor  waved 
her  voice. 

"I  think  you're  horrid,  Flora  Kemble.  Anyway, 
he's  more  worth  while  being  stuck  on  than  Eugene 
Bankhead.  He's  just — just  middle-class.  His  future 
is  to  work  in  Slocum-Hines's  hardware  store,  like  his 
father." 

"Well,  that's  more  of  a  man's  job  than  sitting 
around  in  a  schoolroom  doing  lady's  work.  Papa 
says  Eugene's  father  is  a  five-thousand-a-year  man. 
Eugene  has  all  the  spending  money  he  wants  and 
they  have  a  conservatory  in  their  house." 

"Well,  I'd  rather  be  Lindsley  than  Eugene;  be 
sides,  he's  a  kid  hardly  out  of  short  trousers." 

"Silly,  you  don't  think  it's  Eugene  I'm  stuck  on, 
do  you?  His  brother  Vincent  is  a  big  man  down  at 
Slocum-Hines's,  too,  and  a  catch.  I'm  going  to  meet 
him  some  day.  Lindsley  I  Ugh!  I  like  a  little  spon- 


STAR  DUST  37 

duliks  thrown  in  with  a  fellow.    Lindsley's  elbows 
shine." 

For  the  most  part  the  Board  of  Education  drew 
upon  the  offspring  of  its  own  system  for  teaching 
talent,  occasionally  letting  in  an  artery  of  new  blood. 
Lilly's  second  year  in  High  School  such  an  infusion 
took  place  in  the  form  of  one  H.  Horace  Lindsley, 
the  young  master  of  arts,  his  degree  rather  heavy 
upon  him,  dawning  blondly  and  behind  high-power 
pince-nez  upon  the  English  department. 

Sweet  sixteen  capitulated  to  English  literature. 
The  double  wave  of  Mr.  Lindsley's  hair,  the  intel 
lectual  rush  of  very  long,  white  teeth  to  the  front, 
somehow  mitigating  for  the  sins  of  a  curriculum  that 
could  present  Gorboduc,  and  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  / 
Bungay,  to  young  minds  illy  furrowed  for  such  seed.  * 

Notwithstanding  the  literary  odor  with  which  Mr. 
Lindsley  sprayed  himself  as  he  sprayed  his  handker 
chief  with  a  domestic  scent  called  "  Sesame  and 
Lilies, "  his  neoclassic  determination  to  write  the 
American  Iliad  must  have  died  painlessly  when  his 
iambically  disposed  feet  ventured  too  deeply  int 
the  quagmire  of  pedagogy,  from  which  he  was  not  to 
emerge.  But  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  Lilly  was 
hearing  her  name  pronounced  by  one  who  rolled  it 
under  his  tongue  like  a  lollypop.  He  rolled  all  names 
quite  so,  but  in  her  beatitude  she  was  only  conscious 
of  her  own  as  it  candied.  Besides,  his  eyes,  through 
the  pince-nez,  had  a  gimlet,  goosefleshing  quality; 
he  recited  "Straits  of  Dover"  to  a  class  of  young 
women  with  rapt  adenoidal  expression  when  he 
should  have  been  inoculating  them  with  the  bitter 
serum  of  Burke's  Conciliation  Speech,  and  walked 
to  school  of  wintry  mornings  without  an  overcoat; 
skates  and  the  Areopagitica  under  his  arm. 


38  STAR  DUST 

It  was  undeniable  that  at  this  stage  Lilly  had 
veered  unaccountably  to  authorship,  her  after- 
school  practice  hour  gouged  into  by  a  suddenly 
stimulated  pen. 

"Papa,  I  know  my  ambition!" 

Mr.  Becker  let  fall  his  newspaper  to  his  knee, 
glancing  up  over  the  rim  of  his  reading  glasses. 

"What's  it  now,  daughter?" 

"I  want  to  be  a  writer.  You  know,  an  author  of 
stories.  My  English  teacher  says  I  have  talent.  I 
get  A  minus  on  all  my  essays,  and  to-day  he  wrote  on 
the  edge  of  one,  'Quite  a  literary  touch.'" 

MRS.  BECKER  (who  rocked  as  she  darned) :  "The 
trouble  with  you,  Lilly,  is  that  you  have  it  too  good. 
You  don't  know  what  you  want." 

"You  don't  care  if  I  am  a  writer,  do  you,  papa?" 

"Last  week  it  was  the  stage,  and  last  month  the 
opera,  and  now  it's  writing.  What  next,  I  wonder?" 

"Ycur  mother's  right.  There's  no  stability  to  this 
art  business,  Lilly.  They're  a  loose  lot  that  never 
come  to  a  good  end." 

"Well,  just  the  same,"  cried  Lilly,  hot  with  a 
sense  of  futility  and  rebellion,  "your  own  father  was 
the  next  thing  to  an  actor.  Preaching  is  kin  to 
acting." 

"Don't  you  ever  let  me  hear  you  talk  like  that 
again.  Your  grandfather  was  a  God-fearing,  not  a 
play-acting  man."  Attacking  this  subject,  a  little 
furrow  would  invariably  appear  between  Mr.  Beck 
er's  fine  gray  eyes  and  his  lips  express  bitter  intoler 
ance  for  a  world  that  translated  itself  to  him  solely 
in  terms  of  pink  tights. 

Not  that  the  odor  of  religion  lay  any  too  heavily 
on  Lilly's  youth.  Sunday  school  was  not  enforced, 
Sabbath  ethics  were  observed  loosely,  if  at  all,  but  a 


STAR  DUST  39 

yearly  membership  in  the  Garrison  Avenue  Rock 
Church  was  maintained,  not  without  remonstrance 
from  Mrs.  Becker. 

"I  don't  see  why  we  belong.  If  I  want  to  attend 
church  on  Easter  Sunday  or  a  Christmas,  I  don't 
have  to  pay  dues  all  year  for  it.  A  person  can  pray 
just  as  well  at  home  as  in  church  if  he's  inclined  that 
way." 

"Our  child  doesn't  need  to  be  raised  like  a  heathen 
just  because  we  aren't  as  regular  as  we  might  be 
about  churchgoing.  Besides,  when  trouble  comes 
we  don't  want  to  be  buried  like  heathens,  either." 

"Calamity  howler." 

"In  England,  papa,  writers  get  buried  in  "West 
minster  Abbey.  If  I  lived  in  England,  that  would 
be  my  ambition." 

"The  child  has  ambitions  even  about  funerals.  I 
bought  you  goods  for  a  navy-blue  poplin  to-day, 
Lilly.  Gentle's  had  a  sale." 

"Oh,  mamma,  can  you  get  Katy  Stutz  to  come  in 
time  to  make  it  for  auditorium  next  Friday?  Mr. 
Lindsley  may  call  on  me  to  read  my  essay  out  loud." 

"That  Mr.  Lindsley  makes  me  sick.  You're  a 
changed  child  since  he's  come  to  that  school.  Mrs. 
Foote  said  the  same  thing  of  Estelle  at  the  euchre 
yesterday.  All  the  girls  want  new  dresses  and  to  be 
in  his  classes." 

"Why,  mamma!"  coloring  up. 

"Oh,  run  over  to  Pirney's  and  buy  me  a  postal 
card.  I'll  write  Katy  Stutz  to  take  Mrs.  Foote's 
days  away  from  her  and  give  them  to  me." 

By  small  briberies  employed  without  sense  of 
compromise,  Mrs.  Becker  had  a  way  with  those  who 
served  her.  Katy  Stutz,  an  old  soul  as  lean  and  as 
green  as  a  cotton  umbrella,  had  sewed  at  minimum 


40  STAR  DUST 

wage  through  fourteen  years  of  keeping  Lilly  daintily 
and  a  bit  too  pretentiously  clad.  Willie,  Mrs. 
Schum's  old  negro  cook,  who  wore  her  feet  wrapped 
in  gunny  sacking,  and  every  odd  and  end  that  came 
down  in  the  day's  waste  baskets,  from  empty  spools 
to  nubs  of  pencil,  stored  away  in  the  kink  of  her 
hair,  would  somehow  invariably  send  up  the  gib 
lets  along  with  the  Beckers'  Sunday  allotment  of 
chicken.  Mr.  Keebil,  too,  an  old  Southern  relic, 
his  head  covered  with  suds  of  gray  astrakhan  and  a 
laugh  like  the  up  and  down  of  rusty  bedsprings,  for 
ten  years  had  presided  over  the  hirsute  destinies  of 
Lilly  and  her  mother.  Bi-monthly  he  arrived  on  his 
shampooing  mission,  often  making  a  day's  tour 
throughout  the  boarding  house. 

"Mr.  Keebil,  don't  you  do  the  Kembles'  heads 
first  to-day.  That's  the  way  with  you  people.  I  get 
you  all  your  customers  and  then  you  neglect  me  for 
them." 

"Law!  Mrs.  Beckah,  how  cum  you  think  that? 
Don't  I  give  you  and  Miss  Lilly  shampoos  for  two 
bits  when  I  chawges  Mrs.  Kemble  three  heads  for  a 
dollar?" 

"Yes,  but  what  about  the  underwear  and  socks  of 
Mr.  Becker's  that  you  get?" 

"I  alias  say  I  'ain't  got  no  bettah  friend  than  Mrs. 
Beckah.  That  was  certainly  a  fine  suit  you  done 
give  me  las'  time,  except  for  the  buttons  cut  off." 

"You  should  consider  yourself  lucky  to  get  a  head 
like  Miss  Lilly's  to  take  care  of  at  any  price.  Just 
look  at  it — like  spun  silk." 

He  would  fluff  out  the  really  beautiful  cascade  of 
smooth  and  highly  electric  hair,  his  brown  hands,  so 
strangely  light  pink  of  palm,  full  of  pride  in  their 
task. 


STAR  DUST  41 

1 '  Law !  Miss  Lilly,  if  you  ain't  going  to  grow  up  the 
pick  of  them  all." 

1  'Ouch!  Mr.  Keebil,  you  hurt!"  cried  Lilly,  ever 
tender  of  scalp. 

Nor  was  Mrs.  Becker  above  a  bit  of  persiflage. 

"Mr.  Keebil,  I  hear  it  is  something  scandalous  the 
way  you  and  Willie  are  setting  up  to  each  other." 

The  old  shoulders  would  shake,  the  face  crinkle 
into  a  raisin,  and  the  little  spade  of  gray  beard  heave 
to  the  springy  laughter. 

"Law!  Mrs.  Beckah.  if  you  ain't  the  greatest  one 
to  joke." 

"Joke  nothing.  It's  a  fine  match.  A  good  up 
standing  church  member  like  you  and  a  fine-looking 
woman  like  Willie." 

Lilly  would  turn  a  quirking  but  disapproving  eye 
upon  her  mother. 

"Mamma,  haven't  you  anything  better  to  do?" 

' '  Law !  Miss  Lilly,  me  and  your  ma  we  understand 
each  other.  Me  and  your  papa  we  know  she  will 
have  her  little  joke  but  the  heart  is  there.  That's 
what  counts  on  the  Lord's  Judgment  Day — the 
heart." 

Lilly's  poplin  frock  was  completed  for  the' Friday 
auditorium  exercises.  Her  two  braids,  now  con 
solidated  into  one  hempy  rope,  lay  against  her 
back,  finishing  without  completement  of  hair  ribbon 
into  a  cylinder  of  brushed-around-the-finger  curl.  It 
Wa<3  o  liffio  —  annerism  of  hers,  not  entirely  uncon- 
s(  i  ig  the  heavy  coil  of  hair  over  one 

should  It  enhanced  her  face,  somehow,  the  fall 
c  It  down  over  her  young  bosom.  Con- 

hoking  expectation,  she  was  not  called 
\  but  to  sit  on  the  platform  in  an  honor- 
row  of  five. 


42  STAR  DUST 

Flora  Kemble  read  a  B-plus  paper,  largely  and  in 
immaculate  vertical  penmanship,  entitled  "Friend 
ship,"  Lilly,  the  tourniquet  twist  at  her  heart, 
sitting  by.  Her  name  was  read  later  among  the 
honorable  five,  true  to  manner,  Mr.  Lindsley  seeming 
to  caress  it  with  his  tongue. 

"Miss  Halpern.  Mr.  Prothero.  Miss  Foote. 
Miss  Deidesheimer.  Miss  Beck-er." 

From  where  she  sat  Lilly  could  see  the  slightly 
protuberant  shine  to  his  teeth,  the  intellectual  ride 
of  glasses  along  his  thin  nose,  the  long,  nervous  hand 
with  a  little-finger  fraternity  ring. 

Her  own  hands  were  very  cold,  her  cheeks  very 
pink.  She  had  a  pressing  behind  the  eyes  of  a  not- 
to-be-endured  impulse  of  wanting  to  cry.  His 
reading  of  her  name  was  a  hot  javelin  through  the 
pit  of  her  being. 

After  the  exercises  and  as  school  was  in  dismissal 
she  saw  him  hurrying  out  of  a  side  door  with  a  tennis 
racket.  It  seemed  suddenly  intolerable  that  walk 
home  through  Vandaventer  Place  to  her  boarding- 
house  world. 

Flora's  perceptions  were  small  and  quick. 

"Why,  Lilly,  your  cheeks  are  as  red  as  anything 
and  you're  getting  a  fever  blister.  Somebody  kissed 
you!" 

Her  hand  flew  to  her  mouth  almost  guiltily,  as  if 
to  the  feel  of  lips  slightly  protuberant. 

"Why—    Oh,  you  horrid  girl!" 

"It  was  Lind!    Lind!" 

"Lind— what— who?" 

"Lindsley,  of  course,"  dipping  with  laughter. 

"Flora  Kemble,  I'll  never  speak  to  you  again. 
You're  stuck  on  him  yourself  and  trying  to  put  it 
on  to  me." 


STAR  DUST  43 

"Me  stuck  on  him,  the  way  his  teeth  stick  out! 
No  poor  school-teacher  for  mine!" 

"You're  boy -crazy.    I'm  not." 

But  that  night  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  Lilly 
lay  through  a  sleepless  hour,  staring  up  into  the  dark 
ness.  The  blanket  irked  her  and  she  plunged  it  off, 
burrowing  one  cheek  and  then  the  other  into  her 
pillow  in  search  of  cool  spots.  Her  mother  puffed 
out  slowly  into  the  silence,  her  father  a  bit  more 
sonorous  and  full  of  rumblings. 

Lilly  felt  herself  wound  up  tightly  and  needing  to 
be  run  down.  She  was  taut  as  a  spring.  After  a 
while  she  took  to  plucking  out  from  the  darkness 
words  of  sedative  quality. 

"Dove,"  she  repeated  softly  to  herself,  and  very, 
very  slowly.  "Dove.  Beautiful,  quiet  dove.  Saint. 
Cathedral.  Peace.  Dell." 

But  when  she  finally  did  drop  off  to  sleep  a  smile 
of  protuberant  teeth  was  out  like  a  rainbow  across 
her  darkness. 

4 


CHAPTER  VII 

TATITUDINALLY  speaking,  there  are  about  two 
"  kinds  of  Americans — those  who  live  west  of 
Syracuse,  and  those  who  do  not.  An  imaginary  line 
separates  the  tropic  of  candescence,  fast  trains,  naval 
reviews,  broad  a's,  Broadway,  Beacon  Street,  Inde 
pendence  Square,  and  Tammany  Hall  from  the 
cancer  of  craps,  silver  dollars,  lynchings,  alfalfa, 
toothpicks,  detachable  cuffs,  napkin  rings,  and  boll 
weevils. 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  Horace  Lindsley's 
and  Lilly  Becker's  lineage  were  loamy  with  about  the 
same  magnesia  of  the  soil.  Generations  of  each  of 
them  had  tilled  into  the  more  or  less  contiguous  dirt 
of  Teutonic  Europe. 

Lilly's  progenitors  had  bartered  in  low  Dutch; 
Horace  Lindsley's  in  high  German,  which,  after  all, 
is  more  a  matter  of  geography  than  altitudes. 

An  oval  daguerreotype  of  a  great-grandmother  at 
the  harpsichord  had  hung  in  Carrie  Becker's  (nee 
Ploag)  home  in  Granite  City. 

A  Lindsley  had  once  presented  an  emperor  with 
a  hand-illuminated  version  of  the  King  James  Bible, 
wrought  out  of  peasant  patience.  Horace  Lindsley's 
mother  belonged  to  a  New  England  suffrage  society 
when  ladies  still  wore  silk  mitts,  and  had  dared  to 
open  a  private  kindergarten  in  her  back  parlor  after 
marriage. 

It  was  this  tincture  of  culture  running  like  a  light 


STAR  DUST  45 

bluing  through  Lindsley's  heritage  that  began  to 
set  in  motion  the  little  sleeping  molecules  of  Lilly's 
class  consciousness. 

"Middle  class,"  came  to  be  a  term  employed 
always  with  lips  that  curled.  There  were,  then, 
actually  men  creatures  outside  the  English  "Fireside 
Novels"  she  was  allowed  to  devour  without  interrup 
tion  by  parents  to  whom  books  were  largely  objects 
with  which  a  room  was  cluttered  up,  who  wore  spats, 
did  play -tennis  in  white  flannels,  turned  down  the 
page  at  a  favorite  passage  of  poetry,  eschewed 
suspenders  for  belts,  were  guiltless  of  sleeve  garters, 
and  attended  Saturday-afternoon  symphony  con 
certs,  in  Lindsley's  case,  almost  a  lone  male,  debo- 
naire  and  unabashed  in  a  garden  of  women. 

At  Lilly's  urgent  instance  she  and  her  mother 
often  attended  these  subscription  concerts,  seats  for 
single  performances  obtainable  (in  a  commendable 
zeal  to  promote  local  music)  in  exchange  for  a  news 
paper  coupon  and  twenty-five  cents. 

Mrs.  Becker  frankly  yawned  through  them, 
nictitating,  as  it  were,  during  the  long  narrative 
passages  of  the  symphony  or  occupied  with  the 
personnel  of  the  audience. 

"Look,  Lilly,"  whispering  behind  her  unopened 
program,  "that's  a  pretty  idea  over  there  on  that 
red-haired  girl.  See  the  way  the  baby  ribbon  is  run 
through  the  sleeves.  Do  you  want  a  dress  like  that  ? ' ' 

* '  Sh-h-h-h,  mamma !    No ;  it's  too  fussy !' ' 

"Why  don't  they  play  something  with  a  tune  to 
it?  I  wouldn't  give  a  row  of  pins  for  music  without 
any  air  at  all." 

"Sh-h-h-h,  mamma.  There  isn't  much  tune  to 
classical  music." 

"I   wish   the  first  violinist   would  play   a   solo. 


46  STAR  DUST 

'Warum,'  like  last  time.  I've  some  baby  ribbon  just 
like  that,  Lilly.  I  picked  it  up  on  sale  in  Gentle's 
basement  bins — " 

" Mamma,  don't  stare  so." 

" Don't  criticize  everything  I  do." 

At  one  of  these  concerts  Lilly  shot  out  her  hand 
suddenly,  closing  it  over  her  mother's  wrist. 

1  'Mamma,  there's  Lindsley.  See,  down  there  in 
the  fourth  row." 

"Who?" 

"My  English  teacher.  See,  polishing  his  eye 
glasses." 

Mrs.  Becker  sat  straight,  chin  out  like  an  antenna. 

"Is  that  him?" 

"Yes,  that's  he." 

"I  don't  see  anything  so  wonderful  about  him. 
He  needs  a  haircut." 

"Oh,  mamma,  you  think  all  men  have  to  wear  their 
hair  short  and  ugly  like  papa  and  Uncle  Buck.  In 
the  East  men  look  like  that." 

"The  idea!  A  man  calls  himself  a  man  coming  to 
a  matinee  like  this.  Your  papa  ought  to  know  that 
you  have  a  sissy  like  him  on  your  mind.  Such  a 
looking  thing!  Ugh!" 

These  recurring  intimations  could  sting  Lilly 
,  almost  to  tears. 

"Oh,  mamma,  that's  just  the — the  meanest  thing 
to  say.  Can't  I  show  you  my  English  teacher  without 
having  him  on  my  mind?" 

"I  never  could  stand  a  man  whose  teeth  stick  out. 
He  looks  like  a  horse." 

"Papa's  teeth  stick  out." 

"Yes,  but  just  one,  and  his  mustache  hides  that. 
I  only  hope  for  you,  Lilly,  that  some  day  you  get  a 
man  as  good  as  your  father." 


STAR  DUST  47     v 

"How  did  papa  propose  to  you,  mamma?  What 
did  he  say?" 

Even  Mrs.  Becker  could  flush,  quite  prettily,  too, 
her  lids  dropping  'at  this  not  infrequent  query  of 
Lilly's. 

* '  It's  not  nice  for  young  girls  to  ask  such  questions." 

"Go  on,  mamma,  what  did  he  say?" 

"I  don't  remember." 

The  overture  broke  in  upon  them  then,  a  bril 
liantly  noisy  one  from  Tschaikowsky  that  bathed 
them  in  a  vichy  of  excited  surf.  / 

Settling  with  her  head  snuggled  against  her  fur 
tippet,  the  back  of  her  neck  against  the  chair  top, 
Lilly  could  feel  herself  recede,  as  it  were,  into  a  sort 
of  anagogical  half  consciousness,  laved  and  carried 
along  on  currents  of  melody  that  were  as  sensually 
delicious  as  a  warm  bath.  Her  awareness  of  Lindsley 
on  a  diagonal  from  her  so  that  she  could  see  his 
profile  hook  into  the  music -scented  dimness,  ran 
under  her  skin  like  a  quick  shimmer. 

The  proscenium  arch  curved  again  into  her  con 
sciousness,  herself  its  center  and  vocal  beyond  the 
powers  of  the  human  organ. 

The  slamming  up  of  chairs  and  mussy  shuffling 
into  wraps  recalled  her.  It  was  indescribably  sad, 
this  swimming  up  to  reality.  The  buttoning  of  her 
little  tippet.  The  smell  of  damp  umbrellas.  Then 
the  jamming  down  the  aisle  toward  the  late  and 
rainy  afternoon.  At  the  door  they  were  suddenly 
crushed  up  against  Horace  Lindsley,  his  coat  collar 
turned  up  about  his  ears. 

"Miss  Becker,"  he  said, 'by  way  of  greeting,  nod 
ding  and  showing  his  teeth. 

Her  heart  became  a  little  elevator  dropping  in 
sheer  descent. 


48  STAR  DUST 

"Oh — how — do — you — do?"  They  were  pushed 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  and,  to  Lilly's  agony,  her  moth 
er's  voice  lifted  itself  in  loud  concern. 

"For  pity's  sake,  look  at  that  downpour,  will  you? 
I  hope  your  father  has  the  good  sense  to  wear  his 
rubbers.  Ouch!  Don't  knock  me  down,  please." 

"Mamma — please.  Mr.  Lindsley,  I  want  you  to 
meet  my  mother." 

"Pleased  to  meet  you.  Lilly  certainly  has  talked 
of  her  English  teacher  a  lot." 

"She  is  a  very  interesting  little  student,  Mrs. 
Becker.  Quite  a  quality  to  her  work." 

"Well,  I  am  certainly  pleased  to  hear  that.  She's 
our  only  one,  you  know." 

"Lilly  has  a  tendency  to  let  her  imagination  run 
away  with  her.  A  good  fault  if  she  controls  it." 

"That's  what  her  father  and  I  always  tell  her. 
The  child  has  too  many  talents  to  settle  down  to  any 
one.  She  gets  her  music  from  my  side  of  the  house, 
but  she  quits  practicing  to  write  and  she  quits  writing 
to  practice.  It's  not  that  we  want  our  little  girl 
ever  to  make  her  own  living,  but  her  father  and  I 
believe  in  a  girl  being  prepared,  even  if  she  never  has 
to  use  it.  That's  why  we  are  having  her  take  the 
commercial  course.  We  don't  pretend  to  be  swells, 
but  at  least  we  plan  to  do  as  well  for  our  child  as 
the  next." 

"Exactly." 
LILLY  (in  her  agony):  "Come,  mamma." 

"I  wish  you  could  read  the  poem  she  wrote  last 
night,  Mr.  Lindsley.  Not  that  I  give  a  row  of  pins 
for  poetry,  as  a  rule,  but  I  told  her  she  ought  to  take 
this  one  to  school." 

"Please,  mamma,  please!" 

"  If  I  do  say  it  myself,  it  was  grand.    Mr.  Hazzard, 


STAR  DUST  49 

quite  an  educated  gentleman  who  boards  where  we 
do,  thought  so,  too.  Lilly,  why  don't  you  show  Mr. 
Lindsley  that  poem?  He's  authority." 

"Mamma,  if  only  you  won't  talk  about  it." 

"You  must  bring  it  to  class,  Miss  Becker." 

"No,  no!    I've — I've  torn  it  up." 

"I  don't  remember  all  of  it,  but  everybody  con 
sidered  it  a  grand  thought  for  such  a  young  girl; 
it  goes — " 

"Mamma!    Mamma — not  here — now!" 

"  I  would  not  have  the  restless  soul 

That  sees  not  beauty  everywhere. 
I  see  it  glint  on  ocean  waves, 
Dance  through  a  youth's  or  maiden's  hair." 

"Mamma,  they're  pushing  so!  Good  night,  Mr. 
Lindsley.  Mamma,  come!" 

Outside  in  the  wet  dusk  they  boarded  an  electric 
car,  Lilly  and  her  mother  crammed  on  a  rear  plat 
form  of  the  wet  overcoats,  leaking  umbrellas,  and 
wet-smelling  mackintoshes  of  dinner-bound  St.  Louis. 

"He's  a  right  nice  young  man,  intelligent — but 
if  ever  a  person  looked  like  a  horse!  You  see,  he 
agrees  with  your  papa  and  me.  You  don't  apply 
yourself  to  any  one  thing." 

Lilly  turned  her  inflamed,  quivering  face  upon  her 
mother,  trying  to  speak  through  a  violent  aching  of 
tonsils. 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  "how  could  you?  I'll  never  look 
him  in  the  face  again!  Oh — oh — how  could  you?" 

"Are  you  crazy?    How  could  I  what?" 

"The  poem.  The— the  glint  in— his  hair.  He'll 
think  it  was  his  hair  I  meant.  Oh!  Oh!" 

The  ready  ire  which  could  flame  up  in  Mrs.  Becker 
leaped  out  then. 


So  STAR  DUST 

"If  you  are  ashamed  of  your  mother,  maybe  you 
had  better  not  be  seen  out  with  her  again.  All  I 
am  good  for  is  to  stint  and  manage  to  get  you 
pretty  clothes." 

"No,  n-no,  mamma,  I  didn't  mean  that,  dear." 

"For  a  horse-face  like  him  I  won't  be  made  little." 

1 '  Sh-h-h-h,  dear !  The  whole  street  car  doesn't  need 
to  hear." 

"I  wouldn't  give  a  row  of  pins  for  ten  like  him." 

"Mamma,  the  way  you — talked." 

"The  way  I  talked,  what?  I  suppose  hereafter 
when  I  go  out  with  my  educated  daughter  I  will 
have  to  wear  a  muzzle." 

"I —  Oh,  it  wasn't  what  you  said,  mamma;  it 
was — the  way  you  said  it." 

"The  way  I  said  it?  That's  a  rich  one.  If  I  don't 
tell  your  father!  My  own  child  is  ashamed  of  her 
mother.  Well,  let  me  tell  you  I — " 

"No,  mamma,  you  don't  understand.  Take  that 
word  ' swells,'  for  instance.  Oh,  I  know  I've  used  it 
myself,  but  all  of  a  sudden,  to-day,  it — it  sounded  so 
ordinary." 

"For  a  hundred-dollar-a-month  school-teacher 
that  your  papa  has  to  pay  taxes  to  support,  I'm  not 
afraid  of  my  p's  and  q's." 

"And,  mamma,"  suddenly  and  acutely  sensitive 
to  pleonasm,  "you  begin  every  sentence  with  'say* 
and  you  say  'certainly'  so  often." 

"If  I  don't  have  a  talk  with  your  father  when  he 
comes  home  this  night !  That's  the  thanks  I  get  for 
sitting  through  a  concert  with  you  when  I  might  have 
been  enjoying  myself  at  my  euchre  club.  Just  get 
those  high-tone  notions  out  of  your  head.  We're 
simple  people,  not  swells.  You're  a  changed  child 
these  days." 


STAR  DUST  51 

It  was  true.    An  ineffable  ache,  a  darting  neuralgia 
of  spirit,  too  cunning  and  quick  for  diagnosis,  was  fr/' 
shooting  through  Lilly  her  last  two  years  at  High 
School. 

That  Horace  Lindsley,  who  was  hardly  to  indent/ 
her  life  and  whose  interest  in  the  clean-eyed  girl 
was  little  more  than  a  leaf  upon  his  consciousness, 
and  whose  feet  were  already  feeling  the  tug  of  the 
quicksands  of  mediocrity  which  were  to  suck  him 
out  of  her  reckoning,  should  have  been  the  innocent   > 
source  of  this  neurosis,  is  hardly  remarkable. 

Lilly,  with  the  mysterious  tenacity  of  a  crannied 
flower,  was  pulling  from  her  soil  toward  the  light. 
And  light  in  all  its  chiaroscuras  rules  the  se  lew, 
couche,  complexion,  and  humors  of  the  world. 
Lindsley  was  a  ray. 

And  so  her  adolescence  came  in  suddenly,  al 
most  stormlike,  uprooting  little  forests  of  sapling 
traditions. 

At  sixteen  she  still  slept  on  the  cot  drawn  across 
the  bed  end  and  rode  her  bicycle  up  and  down  the 
sidewalks,  holding  her  skirts  down  against  the  wind, 
but  also  she  had  ransacked  the  boarding-house 
shelves  and  High  School  library,  reading  her  uncen- 
sored  way  through  Lady  Audrey's  Secret,  Canterbury 
Tales,  Five  Little  Peppers  and  How  They  Grew,  Plain 
Facts  About  Life,  Arabian  Nights,  Golden  Treasury, 
Childe  Harold,  To  Have  and  to  Hold,  Tales  from 
Shakespeare,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Old  Curiosity  Shop, 
Diary  of  Marie  Baschkertcheff,  Pride  and  Prejudice, 
Vanity  Fair,  Les  Miser  able  s,  Stories  of  the  Operas, 
and  a  red  volume  rescued  from  propping  up  the  hall 
hatrack,  Great  Lovers. 

Within  that  same  year  Katy  Stutz  twice  lowered 
her  skirt  hems. 


52  STAR  DUST 

"Mamma,  I  think  it  is  terrible  I  haven't  a  room 
to  myself." 

The  entire  surface  of  Mrs.  Becker  seemed  to  coat 
over  with  sensitiveness  to  this  frequently  discussed 
issue. 

"Why,"  her  lips  writhing  with  an  excoriating 
brand  of  self-pity,  "who  am  I  that  I  should  want  a 
home  for  my  daughter,  now  that  she  is  grown? 
Mr.  Kemble  can  treat  his  wife  like  a  queen,  but  me 
— why,  I'm  mud  under  my  husband's  feet." 

The  Kemble  family,  on  a  wave  of  putative  pros 
perity,  had  eight  months  since  gone  to  housekeeping 
in  a  rather  pretentious  rock-fronted  house  on  one  of 
the  many  newly  graded  streets  west  of  Kingshigh- 
way.  Every  Friday  night  Lilly  slept  with  Flora, 
the  two  side  by  side  in  Flora's  pretty  new  bird's-eye- 
maple  bed,  exchanging  unextinguishable  confidences 
well  through  nights  wakeful  with  their  dreams. 

"Flora  has  her  own  parlor  to  practice  in,  and  here 
I  can't  even  sing  a  little  without  the  entire  boarding 
house  rapping  on  the  wall." 

"It's  a  shame.  Watch  me  talk  to  your  father 
to-night." 

"Mamma,  can't  I  please  take  elocution?" 

"I  should  say  not.  Aren't  piano  and  voice  suffi 
cient  ?  The  idea !  I  wouldn't  give  a  row  of  pins  for  all 
the  elocution  in  the  world.  Reciting  is  out  of  date." 

"Mamma,  it  isn't.  Mr.  Lindsley  says  the  modern 
woman  of  culture  should  cultivate  her  speaking 
voice  the  same  as  she  learns  to  use  her  singing  voice. 
Please,  mamma;  only  a  dollar  a  lesson." 

"Oh,  I  don't  care!  Goodness  knows  where  the 
money  is  coming  from,  with  flax  twine  where  it  is; 
but  anything  for  peace." 

And  so  when  Lilly  graduated  from  High  School, 


STAR  DUST  53 

third  in  her  class,  and  again  slightly  to  the  rear  of 
Estelle  Foote,  who  read  the  valedictory,  she  was 
executing  excitedly,  if  sloppily,  "The  Turkish 
Patrol/'  was  singing  in  an  abominably  trained  but 
elastic  enough  soprano,  the  "Jewel  Song"  from 
"Faust,"  and  "Jocelyn,"  a  lullaby,  and  at  a  private 
recital  of  the  Alden  School  of  Dramatic  Expression 
had  recited  "A  Set  of  Turquoise"  to  incidental  music. 

Mrs.  Schum's  boarding  house,  to  the  man,  turned 
out  to  Lilly's  High  School  graduation,  Katy  Stutz 
and  Willie  standing  in  the  wings  and  all  unwittingly 
visible  from  the  house.  A  German-silver  manicure 
set,  handsomely  embossed,  bore  the  somewhat 
cryptic  card,  "To  Lilly  Becker,  as  she  stands  on  the 
threshold  of  life,  from  her  friends  in  the  house." 
There  were  a  Honiton-lace  fan  with  mother-of- 
pearl  sticks,  with  the  best  wishes  of  her  mother's 
euchre  club,  and  from  her  parents  a  tiny  diamond 
ring  set  high  in  gold  facets,  "To  Lilly,  from  her 
parents,  June,  1901,"  engraved  in  the  hoop. 

That  night,  still  in  her  white  organdie  frock,  with 
its  whirligig  design  of  too  much  Valenciennes  lace, 
her  hair  worn  high  and  revealing  an  unsuspectedly 
white  nape  of  neck,  Lilly  regarded  her  parents  across 
a  little  table-display  of  gifts. 

"I  feel  so  queer,"  she  said,  looking  off  through  the 
chocolate-ochre  wall  paper,  the  reaction  already  set 
in.  "So  sort  of — finished.  Nothing  to  do." 

MR.  BECKER:  "That  was  certainly  a  fine  speech 
the  president  of  the  Board  of  Education  made. 
You've  something  now  that  no  one  can  take  away 
from  you.  Knowledge  is  power." 

"Two  girls  in  our  class  are  going  to  the  University 
of  Missouri,  papa.  That's  what  I'd  like  to  do — go 
to  college." 


54  STAR  DUST 

"Don't  spoil  a  good  thing  by  trying  to  overdo  it, 
Lilly.  It  is  as  bad  for  a  young  girl  to  permit  herself 
to  be  educated  into  one  of  those  bold,  unwomanly 
woman's-rights  girls  as  it  is  for  her  to  be  frivolous 
and  empty-headed.  When  women  get  too  smart  they 
get  unattractive." 

"But,  papa,  girls  are  beginning  more  and  more  to 
go  to  college,  and  all  women  will  be — suffrage — some 
day." 

"Not  womanly  girls,  Lilly." 

"I  always  said  that  High  School  would  be  her 
ruination." 

' '  I  didn't  learn  it  there,  mamma.  I  always  wanted 
to  be  something — " 

"Well,  you're  a  finished  stenographer,  aren't  you? 
Why  not  go  down  to  your  father's  office  a  couple  of 
mornings  a  week?" 

"I  don't  mean  stenography.  I  hated  learning  it. 
I  mean  something — something — beyond— 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Becker,  quiet  at  the  business  of 
wrapping  away  some  of  the  gifts,  glanced  up,  two 
round  spots  of  color  on  her  cheeks. 

"You  are  going  to  do  something,  Lilly.  Have  a 
home  and  entertain  in  it  like  other  girls." 

"But—" 

"I've  a  piece  of  news  for  you  and  your  father. 
If  I  waited  for  him  to  take  the  initiative  I'd  wait 
until  the  crack  of  doom." 

"What  is  it,  little  woman?" 

"I  signed  a  lease  yesterday  for  one  of  those  yellow- 
brick  houses — seven  rooms,  bath,  furnace  heat,  and 
privilege  of  buying.  Twenty-eight  dollars,  out  on 
Page  Avenue  near  Union.  We  move  in  two  weeks 
from  to-day. " 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THERE  followed  one  of  those  years  which  come 
and  go  even  in  the  small  affairs  of  small  men, 
when  for  Ben  Becker  swift  waters  flowed  under  the 
bridge.  He  was  just  that,  a  small  man,  prided  him 
self  upon  it  and  was  frequent  in  his  boast:  "I'm  a 
small  man,  Carrie.  I  don't  hope  to  make  a  big  or 
showy  success  of  it.  Just  a  comfortable  and  unas 
suming  living  is  about  all  I  expect  to  get  out  of  it, 
and  that's  a  pretty  good  deal." 

The  Spanish- American  War,  something  of  musical 
comedy  in  its  setting,  had  run  its  brief  malarial 
engagement,  netting  Ben  Becker,  in  one  order  of 
hemp  rope  alone,  a  cleanly  realized  profit  of  forty- 
two  hundred  dollars. 

On  a  new  and  gradually  attained  bank  credit  the 
B.  T.  Becker  Hemp,  Rcpe,  and  Twine  Company 
bought  out  the  about-to-be-insolvent  Mound  City 
Flax  Twine  Company,  the  consolidated  interests 
moving  into  a  two-story  brick  building  on  South 
Seventh  Street. 

The  firm  took  on  the  subtle  and  psychological  pro 
portions  that  go  with  incorporation,  however  unas 
suming,  capitalizing  at  fifteen  thousand  dollars, 
B.  T.  Becker,  president;  Jerry  Hensel,  trusted  fore 
man  of  years,  vice  president  and  holder  of  ten 
shares;  Carrie  Becker,  secretary  and  treasurer  and, 
to  propitiate  the  law,  holder  of  one  share. 

The  little  house  on  Page  Avenue,  too  new  for  wall 
paper,  still  exuding  the  indescribable  cold,  white  smell 


S6  STAR  DUST 

of  mortar  in  the  drying,  was  none  the  less — and  with 
the  flexible  personality  of  houses — taking  on  the 
print  of  the  family.  A  mission  dining-room  set, 
ordered  wholesale  through  the  machinations  of  one 
of  Mrs.  Becker's  euchre  friends,  arriving  from  Grand 
Rapids  two  months  late,  completed  a  careful  and 
thrifty  period  of  housefurnishing.  There  were  an 
upright  piano,  still  rented,  but,  like  the  house,  pay 
ments  to  apply  to  a  possible  future  purchase,  in  the 
square  of  "reception  hall";  a  double  brass  bed 
stead  in  the  second-story  front ;  and  tucked  away  in 
the  back  of  the  tiny  house,  overlooking,  through 
sheerest  of  dimity  curtains,  a  rolling  ocean  of  empty 
lots,  the  German-silver  manicure  set  spread  out  on 
the  dressing  table,  Lilly 's  bird's-eye-maple  bedroom 
come  true. 

Followed  even  then  a  long  and  uneasy  period  of 
adjustment.  The  up  and  down  stairs  tugged  at  the 
rear  muscles  of  Mrs.  Becker's  legs,  compelling  eve 
ning  foot  baths.  Mr.  Becker  chafed  under  the  twenty 
minutes  additional  street -car  ride,  eating  his  dinner 
by  gaslight  even  in  August.  The  bed  making  and 
her  allotment  of  the  upstairs  work  irked  Lilly,  even 
though  Willie's  stepniece,  Georgia,  came  to  help 
out  once  a  week,  and  evenings  the  little  house  could 
seem  very  still  and  untenanted. 

But  after  the  arrival  of  the  mahogany-and-velours 
parlor  set,  the  music  cabinet,  and  the  hanging  of 
crispy  lace  curtains,  Lilly  standing  on  the  ladder, 
her  mother  steadying  from  below,  and  finally  the 
laying  of  a  well-padded  strip  of  stair  carpet  to  eat  in 
the  hollow  noises  of  new  tenancy,  the  house  began 
to  settle,  so  to  speak. 

Something  latent,  something  congenital,  even 
malignant,  however,  had  developed  in  Mrs.  Becker. 


STAR  DUST  57 

She  took  a  fierce  kind  of  joy,  not  untinged  with  the 
mongrel  emotion  of  self-pity,  in  scrubbing,  on  hands 
and  knees,  the  entire  flight  of  back  stairs  at  the  black 
six-o'clock  hour  of  wintry  mornings,  her  voice  tick 
ling  up  like  a  feather  duster  to  Lilly's  reluctantly 
awakening  senses. 

* '  Lil-ly !  Get  up !  I've  done  a  day's  work  already. 
If  I  was  a  girl  I  wouldn't  want  to  sleep  while  my 
mother  slaves." 

But  let  Lilly  so  much  as  venture  down  into  the 
wintry  gaslight  of  the  bacon-fragrant  kitchen,  prof 
fering  her  drowsy  aid,  a  new  flow,  still  in  the  key  of 
termagency,  would  greet  her. 

"Go  right  back  to  bed,  Lilly.  You  want  to  catch 
your  death  of  cold?" 

"But,  mamma,  you  fuss  so.  I'd  rather  help  than 
listen.  Here,  let  me  stir  the  oatmeal." 

* '  Go  back  to  bed,  I  say.  I  don't  intend  to  have  you 
spoil  your  hands  with  kitchen  work.  Maybe  some 
day  your  father  will  feel  in  a  position  to  give  his  wife  a 
permanent  servant  girl  like  any  other  woman  has." 

"Mamma,  he's  always  begging  you  to  get  one." 

"I  know.  Talk  is  cheap.  Did  you  hear  what  I 
said,  Lilly?  Stop  that  stirring  and  go  back  to  bed! 
I'll  bring  up  your  breakfast  after  a  while.  I'll  fix 
your  sandwiches  for  the  sewing  circle  this  afternoon." 

"Oh,  mamma,  I  just  hate  that  circle!  I  wish  to 
goodness  you  would  let  me  resign." 

"I  have  a  grateful  daughter,  I  have.  Any  other 
child  with  your  advantages  would  think  she  had 
heaven  on  earth." 

"I  hate  it,  I  tell  you.  Flora  and  Snow  and  all 
those  girls,  with  nothing  on  their  brains  except 
fellows  and  fancy  work,  make  me  positively  sick." 

' '  I  notice  Flora  had  enough  brains  to  become 


58  STAR  DUST 

engaged  to  a  fine  young  fellow  with  prospects  like 
Vincent  Bankhead." 

"Every  time  I  sit  down  at  that  circle  I  think  I'm 
going  to  scream.  I  just  can't  rake  up  enthusiasm 
over  French  knots.  Something  in  me  begins  to 
suffocate  and  I  can't  get  out  from  under.  I  hate  it." 

Regarding  her  daughter  through  the  bluish  aroma 
of  bacon  in  the  frying,  her  early-morning  coiffure 
and  wrapper  not  lenient  with  her,  a  bitterness  pulled 
at  the  lips  of  Mrs.  Becker. 

"That  settles  it.  I'm  going  to  have  a  talk  with 
your  father  this  morning." 

"Oh,  mamma,  please  don't  begin  a  scene ! " 

"Ben,  are  you  ready  for  breakfast?  Come  down. 
What  do  you  do  up  there  so  long?  You've  been  one 
solid  hour  splashing  around  the  bathroom,  as  if  I 
didn't  have  to  get  down  on  my  hands  and  knees  to 
wipe  up  the  flood  around  the  bathtub.  Hurry ! 
Your  daughter  has  something  to  say  to  you." 

"Coming,  Carrie.     Don't  get  excited." 

"Don't  get  excited!  I  think  your  father  would 
ram  that  down  my  throat  if  this  house  was  tumbling 
around  our  heads." 

It  was  true  that  Mr.  Becker's  imperturbability 
incased  him  like  a  kindly  coating  of  tallow.  His 
daily  and  peremptory  call  to  breakfast  brought  him 
down  only  after  the  last  satisfactory  application  of 
whisk,  tooth,  hand,  shoe,  bath,  and  hair  brush,  his 
invariable  white-linen  string  tie  adjusted  to  a 
nicety,  his  neat  gray  business  suit  buttoned  over  a 
gradual  embonpoint. 

"If  I  took  as  good  care  of  myself  as  my  husband 
does,  I'd  live  to  be  a  thousand." 

"Now,  little  woman,  you  got  up  on  the  wrong  side 
of  bed  to-day." 


I 


STAR  DUST  59 

On  this  particular  morning  he  descended  genial, 
rubbing  cold,  soap-exuding  hands  together. 

"Well,  little  woman!    Good  morning,  daughter." 

"Ben,  I'm  at  my  row's  end  with  Lilly.  Something 
has  got  to  be  done  or  I  can't  stand  it." 

He  sat  down,  an  immediate  tiredness  out  in  his 
face,  adjusting  his  napkin  by  the  patent  fasteners  to 
each  coat  lapel. 

"Now,  Carrie,  have  you  and  Lilly  been  quarreling 
again  ?  Doesn't  it  seem  too  bad,  Lilly,  that  you  and 
your  mother  cannot  get  on  without  these  disturb 
ances?  Your  mother  may  have  her  peculiarities, 
but  she  means  well." 

A  ready  wave  of  red  self -commiseration  dashed 
itself  across  Mrs.  Becker's  face. 

"I  can't  stand  it,  Ben.  I  don't  know  what  she 
wants.  Maybe  you  can  please  her.  I  can't.  Every 
thing  I  do  is  wrong.  Everything." 

In  her  little  blue-gingham  morning  dress,  out  of 
which  her  neck  flowered  white  and  ever  beautiful  of 
nape,  Lilly  crumbled  up  her  biscuit,  eyes  miserably 
down,  the  red-hot  pricklings  which  invariably  accom 
panied  these  scenes  flashing  over  her  and  a  crowding 
in  her  throat  as  if  she  must  tear  it  open  for  language 
to  make  them  understand. 

"Talk  to  your  father,  now!  Tell  him  some  of  the 
things  you  hound  me  with." 

"Lilly,  what  seems  to  be  the  trouble?" 

"I — I  don't  know.  Mamma  gets  so  excited  right 
away.  I  just  happened  to  mention  that — I  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  myself." 

"Do  with  yourself!  Help  me  in  the  house.  I 
can  give  you  enough  to  do  with  yourself.  I  don't 
get  lonesome." 

Carrie,  now,  don't  holler." 


6o  STAR   DUST 

"That's  the  way  she  is,  papa.  She  gets  excited 
and  hollers  at  me  because  I  can't  get  interested  in 
sewing  clubs  and  housework." 

"It's  because  you've  got  it  too  good  that  you're 
not  satisfied.  That  Flora  Kemble,  that  never  has  a 
decent  thing  to  wear,  gets  engaged  to  a — " 

"Now,  Carrie,  that's  no  way  to  talk." 

"Mamma  always  makes  me  feel  uncomfortable 
because  I'm  not  married  yet." 

' '  Now  do  you  believe  what  I  go  through  with,  Ben  ?' ' 

"You  haven't  any  faith  in  me,  but — somewhere — 
destiny,  or  whatever  you  want  to  call  it,  has  a  job 
waiting  for  me!" 

"That's  too  poetical  for  me  to  keep  up  with. 
Thank  goodness  I'm  a  plain  woman  who  knows  her 
place  in  life." 

"Exactly,  mamma.  It  isn't  that  I  consider  my 
self  above  Flora's  party  to-morrow  night.  It's  not 
my  place.  I  don't  belong  there.  I  hate  it,  I  tell  you. ' ' 

"You  hear  that,  Ben?  That's  the  thanks  I  get. 
You  know  the  way  I've  tried  to  make  this  little 
home  one  a  child  could  be  proud  of.  Take  the  time 
that  fine  young  Bryant  fellow  came  to  call.  Why, 
that  little  parlor  of  ours  was  fit  for  a  princess.  His 
knuckles  didn't  suit  her!  They  cracked,  she  said. 
I've  heard  of  lots  of  excuses  for  not  taking  to  boys, 
but  that  beats  all.  Three  girls  out  of  the  sewing 
club  already  married  and  Flora  engaged  to  that 
well-to-do  Bankhead  boy,  and  mine  holds  herself 
above  them  all." 

"Your  mother  isn't  all  wrong,  Lilly." 

"I've  run  my  legs  off  for  the  white  organdie  so 
Katy  Stutz  could  make  it  up  for  Flora's  engagement 
party  to-morrow  night.  Does  she  appreciate  it? 
Oh  yes,  long  face  is  the  kind  of  appreciation  I  get." 


STAR  DUST  61 

"I'd  rather  stay  home,  mamma,  and  practice  my 
singing  or  read — anything — " 

"You'll  sing  there.  Mrs.  Kemble  has  it  all  fixed 
for  Flora  to  call  on  you  just  before  the  refreshments. 
If  you  begin  to  pout  about  this  party,  Lilly,  I — " 

"Oh,"  cried  Lilly,  turning  her  face  away  to  hide 
the  embitterment  of  lip  and  still  crumbling  up  her 
biscuit,  "don't  worry.  I'm  going  if — if  it  kills  me.'* 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Becker's  face  quivered  ominously, 
the  impending  storm-cloud  bursting. 

"I  wish  I  was  dead.  What  do  I  get  out  of  it? 
Struggle  and  sacrifice,  and  all  for  an  ungrateful 
daughter  that  isn't  happy  in  her  home." 

1 '  It  isn't  that.    Just  let  me  be— myself ! ' ' 

"Then  what  is  yourself?  For  God's  sake  tell  us 
what?  Anything  to  end  this  state  of  affairs." 

"I'm  suffocating  here.  Let  me  make  something 
out  of  myself." 

"Listen  to  her,  Ben.  Make  something.  Her 
stories  come  back  from  the  editors.  Her  teacher 
keeps  telling  me  her  voice  isn't  ready  yet.  Miss 
Lee  says  her  piano  technique  is  lazy — " 

"Then  let  me  travel — college — anything." 

"She  thinks  we're  millionaires,  Ben." 

"Lilly,  Lilly!  What  is  the  young  generation 
coming  to?" 

"I  wish  I  was  dead.  Dead,"  cried  Mrs.  Becker, 
beating  at  the  table  until  the  dishes  shivered. 
Danger  lights  sprang  out  in  little  green  signals 
around  about  the  flanges  of  her  nose.  She  was 
mounting  to  hysteria. 

' '  Lilly,  aren't  you  ashamed  to  torture  your  mother 
like  this?"  cried  Mr.  Becker,  his  voice  shot  through 
with  what  for  him  amounted  to  a  pistol  report. 
"Comfort  your  mother.  Apologize  at  once!" 


62  STAR  DUST 

"Mamma,  I'm  sorry!    I  am,  dear." 

"You  would  think  we  were  plotting  against  her." 

"Now,  now,  Carrie,  Lilly  doesn't  mean  all  she 
says." 

"But  she  eats  my  life  out." 

"She  wants  to  please  us.    Don't  you,  Lilly?" 

"Y-yes,  papa — " 

"Now  let  us  see  if  things  can't  run  smoother  in  our 
little  home,  eh,  Lilly?  We'll  all  try  and  do  each  his 
part,  eh,  Lilly?" 

"Y-yes,  papa." 

"It's  late,"  cried  Mrs.  Becker,  suddenly,  on  the 
single  gong  of  half  after  seven,  and,  ever  quick  and 
kaleidoscopic  of  mood:  "Katy  Stutz  will  be  here 
any  minute.  That's  her  now.  Run  upstairs,  Lilly, 
and  take  the  top  off  the  sewing  machine  and  lay  out 
the  white  organdie.  Quick,  Lilly.  I  want  you  to 
have  it  without  fail  for  to-morrow  night." 


CHAPTER  IX 

IT  was  at  this   controversial  gathering  of  young 
people  at  the  home  of  Flora  Kemble  that  Lilly 
met,  for  the  first  time,  Albert  Penny. 

The  Kemble  home  lent  itself  gracefully  to  occasions 
of  this  kind,  the  parlor  and  reception  hall  opening 
into  one,  and  the  impending  refreshments  in  the 
dining  room  shut  off  with  folding  doors.  There  was 
more  of  ostentation  in  the  Kemble  home.  More 
festooning  of  fringed  scarfs,  gilt  chairs,  and  a  glass 
curio  cabinet  crammed  with  knickknacks. 

"Dutch  as  sauerkraut,"  was  Mrs.  Becker's  indict 
ment  ;  and  Flora  Kemble  came  under  the  gaucherie 
of  the  impeachment,  too. 

She  had  attained  tall  and  exceedingly  supine  pro 
portions,  wore  pinks  and  blues  and  an  invariable 
necklace  of  pink  paste  pearls  to  fine  advantage,  and 
a  fuzz  of  yellow  bangs  that  fell  down  over  her  eyes, 
only  to  be  repeatedly  flung  back  again. 

Again  MRS.  BECKER  (who  could  be  caustic) :  "She 
makes  me  so  nervous,  with  her  hair  down  over  her 
eyes  like  a  poodle  dog,  that  I  could  scream." 

Nevertheless,  at  eighteen  Flora's  neat  spiritous 
air  lay  calm  as  a  wimple  over  her  keenly  motivated 
little  self.  The  same  apparently  guileless  exterior 
that  had  concealed  her  struggle  along  a  road  lit  with 
midnight  oil  toward  her  graduation,  enveloped  the 
campaign  of  strategy  and  minutiae  that  had  resulted 
victoriously  in  her  engagement  to  Vincent  Bankhead, 
assistant  credit  man  to  his  father. 


64  STAR  DUST 

Albert  Penny  at  this  time  was  second-assistant 
buyer  for  Slocum-Hines,  and,  at  the  instance  of  his 
friend  Vincent,  somewhat  reluctantly  present. 

"Al,  what  are  you  doing  to-night  ?" 

"Oh,  about  the  same  old  thing!  Take  a  stroll  and 
turn  in,  I  guess.  Why?" 

"There  is  a  little  gathering  up  at  the  Kembles' 
this  evening.  Thought  maybe  you'd  like  to  meet 
the  girl.  Nothing  formal,  just  a  few  of  the  girls 
and  boys  over  to  celebrate." 

"I'm  not  much  on  that  kind  of  thing,  Bankhead. 
Guess  you'd  better  count  me  out." 

' '  Come  along.  Want  to  show  you  the  kind  of  little 
peach  I've  picked." 

"Ask  me  out  some  night  to  a  quiet  little  supper, 
Bankhead.  I  feel  a  cold  coming  on." 

1 '  Quiet  little  supper,  nothing.  That's  your  trouble 
now,  too  much  quiet.  Nice  people,  her  folks.  It  '11 
do  you  good." 

And  so  it  came  that  when  the  folding  doors  be 
tween  the  Kemble  dining  room  and  parlor  were 
thrown  open,  Lilly  Becker,  still  flushed  from  a  self- 
accompanied  rendition  of  "Angels'  Serenade"  and 
an  encore,  "Jocelyn,"  and  Albert  Penny,  in  a  neat 
business  suit  and  plaid  four-in-hand,  found  them 
selves  side  by  side,  napkin  and  dish  of  ice  cream  on 
each  of  their  laps,  gay  little  bubbles  of  conversation, 
that  were  constantly  exploding  into  laughter,  floating 
up  from  off  the  gathering. 

There  is  a  photograph  somewhere  in  an  album  of 
Lilly  much  as  she  must  have  looked  that  night. 
Her  white  organdie  frock  out  charmingly  around  her, 
a  fluted  ruffle  at  the  low  neck  forming  fitting  calyx 
for  the  fine  upward  flow  of  her  high  white  chest  into 
firm,  smooth  throat;  the  enormous  puff  sleeves  of 


STAR  DUST  65 

the  period  ending  above  the  elbow  where  her  arm 
was  roundest;  the  ardent,  rather  upward  thrust  of 
face  as  if  the  stars  were  fragrant ;  the  little  lilt  to  the 
eyebrows;  the  straight  gray  eyes;  the  complexion 
smooth  as  double  cream,  flowing  in  cleanest  jointure 
into  the  shining  brown  hair,  worn  in  an  age  of 
Psyche  or  Pompadour,  so  swiftly  and  shiningly 
drawn  back  that  it  might  have  been  painted  there. 

That  was  the  Lilly  Becker  upon  whom  Albert  Penny 
cast  the  first  second  glance  he  had  ever  spared  her  sex. 

"Miss  Becker,  we  certainly  did  enjoy  your  solo." 

She  was  still  warmed  from  the  effort,  the  tingling 
nervousness  of  the  moment  not  yet  died  down,  and 
she  was  eager  and  grateful. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Penny,  did  you  really?  I  was  so  afraid 
I  flatted  there  at  the  end." 

"I  had  to  laugh  the  way  they  broke  in  with  clap 
ping  before  you  were  finished.  I  knew  you  weren't 
done." 

"Oh,  then  you're  musical,  too?" 

"No,  but  I  could  see  there  was  one  more  page  you 
hadn't  turned." 

"Oh!" 

"My!  but  you  can  go  high!  Like  a  regular  opera 
singer." 

"Oh,  if  I  thought  you  meant  that!  It's  my  ambi 
tion  to  sing — real  big  opera,  you  know." 

"It  certainly  was  a  pretty  song,  not  so  much  the 
song  as  the  way  you  sang  it.  I  could  understand 
every  word." 

"If  only  my  parents  could  hear  you  say  that. 
You  see,  they  don't  approve.  They  think  it's  all 
right  for  a  girl  to  have  a  parlor  voice,  but  it  must 
stop  right  there,  otherwise  it  becomes  a  liability 
instead  of  an  asset." 


66  STAR  DUST 

At  this  little  conceit  of  speech  he  turned  delighted 
eyes  upon  her. 

"Why,  you're  a  regular  little  business  woman!" 
he  cried. 

"Yes,"  she  sighed  out  at  him  through  a  smile, 
"I  took  the  commercial  course  at  High." 

Inhibitions  induce  callosities,  and  Albert  Penny's 
inhibitions,  incased  within  the  shell  of  himself,  were 
as  catalogic  as  Homer's  list  of  ships.  First,  like 
Tithonus,  he  had  no  youth.  Persiflage,  which  he 
secretly  envied  in  others,  on  his  own  lips  went  off 
like  damp  fireworks.  He  loved  order  and  his  mind 
easily  took  in  statistics.  He  had  invented  a  wire 
kind  of  dish  for  utilizing  the  left-over  blobs  of  soap. 
He  never  received  so  much  as  a  street-car  transfer 
without  reading  its  entire  face  contents.  In  seven 
years  he  had  not  availed  himself  of  the  annual  two 
weeks'  vacation  offered  him  by  his  firm,  and,  conspire 
as  he  would  against  it,  Sunday  continued  to  repre 
sent  to  him  a  hebdomadal  vacuity  of  morning  paper, 
afternoon  nap  and  walk,  unsatisfactory  cold  supper, 
and  early  to  bed.  His  very  capacity  for  monotony 
seemed  to  engender  it.  He  could  sit  in  Forest  Park 
the  whole  of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  poring  over  a 
chance  railroad  time-table  picked  up  on  the  bench; 
paring  his  straight,  clean  finger  nails  with  a  pen 
knife;  observing  the  carriages  go  by;  or  sit  be 
side  the  lake,  watching  the  skiffs  glide  about  at 
twenty-five  cents  the  hour;  and  finally,  hat  brim 
down  over  his  eyes,  doze  until  twilight  seeped 
damply  into  his  consciousness. 

This  same  unsensitiveness  to  routine  had  enhanced 
his  value  with  Slocum-Hines  from  delivery  boy  at 
fifteen  to  second-assistant  buyer  at  twenty-five,  an 
amenability,  however,  that  threatened  to  pauperize 


STAR  DUST  67 

him  of  any  capacity  for  play.  Under  the  well-meant 
banterings  of  friends  he  became  conscious  of  it,  but 
to  cast  it  off  was  to  cast  off  the  thing  he  was.  He 
tried  to  learn  to  recreate,  and  took  Saturday-evening 
street-car  rides  to  Forest  Park  Highlands  and 
joined  a  bowling  club.  He  paid  ten  dollars  in  advance 
for  a  course  of  six  dancing  lessons,  too,  and  only  took 
four  of  them. 

There  had  never  been  a  woman,  a  perfume,  or  a 
regret  in  his  life.  In  the  period  of  ten  years  since  his 
migration  from  the  paternal  farm  ten  miles  outside 
of  Sparta,  Missouri,  he  had  worked  for  one  firm, 
boarded  with  one  landlady,  and  eaten  about  three 
thousand  quick  lunches  in  the  Old  Rock  Bakery  at 
Lucas  Avenue  and  Broadway.  To  further  account 
for  the  state  of  existing  hiatus  in  Mr.  Penny's 
scheme  of  things  would  be  tautology. 

A  short  femur  line  gave  him  an  entirely  false  ap 
pearance  of  stcckiness.  On  the  contrary,  he  stood  a 
full  five  feet  ten,  was  thewed  with  fine  compactness 
and  solid  with  clean  living  and  clean  with  solid 
living.  Even  the  fiber  of  his  remarkably  fine  hair 
was  strong.  It  was  the  brilliant  honey  color  of  full- 
moon  shine,  lay  off  his  brow,  but  not  down,  lending 
him  a  look  of  distinction  to  which  he  was  hardly 
entitled. 

He  regarded  Lilly  with  a  furtiveness  prompted 
solely  by  a  desire  not  to  appear  audacious.  Her 
softly  rising  throat  just  recovering  its  normal  beat 
reminded  him  of  the  sweet  agitation  of  pigeons  m 
the  park.  He  was  close  enough  to  be  conscious  of  an 
amazing  impulse  on  his  part  to  reach  over  and  touch 
the  soft  white  flesh  above  the  cove  of  her  elbow. 
A  little  blue  thread  of  a  vein  showed  fiere,  mad 
deningly.  A  sense  of  inner  pounding  suffocated 


68  STAR  DUST 

him.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  suddenly  stepped  into  a 
bath  of  charged  waters,  little  explosions  all  over  the 
surface  of  him.  Then  a  numbness  so  that,  when  he 
placed  his  tongue  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  it  was 
insensate,  and,  somewhat  frightened,  he  pinched  the 
back  of  his  hand,  relieved  by  the  stab  of  pain. 

''Do  you  dance,  Mr.  Penny?" 

"Me?  I —  No,  I  guess  I'm  what  you  would  call 
temperance  when  it  comes  to  frolics." 

A  little  clearing  had  been  made  in  the  parlor,  a 
music  box  pricking  out  the  "Blue  Danube."  From 
the  dining  room  they  sat  regarding  the  three  or  four 
couples,  Lilly  marking  time  with  the  toe  of  her  white- 
kid  slipper.  The  elixir  of  the  dance  could  rush  to  her 
head  like  wine,  but  she  was  not  sought  after  as  a 
partner,  due  to  her  reserve  against  a  too  locked 
embrace  and  a  curious  tendency  to  lead.  \f 

"To  me,  dancing  is  poetry  as  written  by  the  feet." 

He  relieved  her  of  her  napkin  and  ice-cream  dish, 
eager  for  suitable  reply  to  this  syrupy  observation. 

"Speaking  of  feet,  have  you  seen  the  show  at 
Forest  Park  Highlands  this  week?" 

"No." 

"Well,  really  remarkable.  There  is  an  armless 
fellow  there  who  eats  and  juggles,  even  writes,  with 
his  toes." 

"Indeed!" 

' '  Sometime  if  you  would  honor  me  by — by  accom 
panying —  I — er —  Becker,  did  I  understand  the 
name  to  be?  I  wonder  if  by  any  chance  you  are 
related  to  Ben  Becker." 

She  turned  upon  him  with  the  immemorial  sense 
of  a  point  about  to  be  scored,  her  eyes  full  of  relish. 

"Why,  f  think  I'm  slightly  related,  Mr.  Penny. 
He  happ  ^Is  to  be  my  father." 


STAR  DUST  69 

He  whacked  his  thigh. 

"You  don't  tell  me!  Why,  I've  bought  rope  and 
twine  from  your  father  for  three  years!  A  mighty 
fine  gentleman,  there.  Well,  well,  this  is  a  small 
world,  after  all." 

She  noticed  his  large,  protuberant  Adam's  apple 
throbbing  with  the  accelerando  of  pleasure,  and  a 
thaw  set  in  between  them.  He  let  his  arm  drape 
over  the  back  of  her  chair,  a  stolen  sense  of  her 
nearness  dizzying  him.  He  was  like  a  man  with  a 
suddenly  developed  new  sense,  which  he  could  not 
tickle  enough. 

"Well,  well!"  he  said.  "Well,  well,  well!"  And 
she  sighed  out  again  through  her  smile  that  he  could 
fall  so  short  of  what  he  looked  to  be. 

"I  used  to  say,  when  I  was  a  little  girl,  Mr.  Penny, 
that  I  wished  my  father  were  in  a  more  romantic 
business  than  rope  and  twine.  I  wanted  him  to  be 
a  florist  or  a  wood  carver  or  a  music  publisher  or 
some  of  the  perfectly  silly  things  that  girls  get  into 
their  heads." 

"I  always  say  of  myself  that  I  must  have  been 
born  with  a  wooden  spoon  in  my  mouth.  Took  to 
hardware  from  the  very  start.  Left  my  stepfather's 
farm  and  general  store  at  fifteen  and  made  a  bee 
line  for  the  hardware  business  before  I  hardly  knew 
what  hardware  meant.  I  suppose  I'll  die  with  my 
nose  to  one  of  those  very  grindstones  we  carry  in 
stock  and  be  buried  with  one  of  those  same  wooden 
spoons  in  my  mouth.  Although  I  always  say,  no 
burial  for  mine.  Burn  me  up — cremate  me  when 
I'm  finished  here." 

"Papa  is  that  way,  too,  about  his  business, 
I  mean.  Tied  up  in  twine,  I  tell  him." 

"Just  ask  your  father  if  he  knows  Albert  Penny, 


70  STAR  DUST 

Miss  Becker.  Queer  how  things  happen.  This  very 
day  I  turned  over  a  memorandum  to  the  head  of  my 
department,  advising  a  certain  buy  in  hemp  rope, 
Becker  and  Co.  in  the  back  of  my  head  all  the  time." 

At  eleven  o'clock  the  first  guest  rose  to  go,  Lilly 
following  immediate  suit. 

His  state  of  eagerness  rose  redly  to  his  ears. 

"Will  you  permit  me  to  escort  you  home,  Miss 
Becker?" 

"Why,  yes,  if  it  won't  upset  Flora's  plans  for  me. 
I  only  live  two  blocks  over  on  Page." 

41 1  wish  you  lived  as  far  as  Carondalet,"  he  said, 
choking  over  words  too  strange  to  be  his. 

They  walked  home  through  quiet  streets  that 
smelled  sweetly  and  moistly. 

He  was  scrupulously  careful  of  her  at  crossings, 
his  tingling  fingers  closing  over  the  roundest  part 
of  her  arm,  the  warmth  of  her  shining  through  to  the 
fabric  of  her  eider-down-bordered  cape,  lending  it  a 
vibrant  living  quality  that  thrilled  him. 

"I  certainly  have  enjoyed  a  perfect  evening,  Miss 
Becker." 

The  magic  of  youth  stole  out  of  the  citified  night 
upon  her. 

"See!"  she  cried,  her  arm  darting  out  of  her  cape, 
"that's  Taurus  up  there.  I  can  always  tell  him. 
He's  green.  See  how  he  glitters  to-night.  Some 
times  I  feel  sorry  for  Taurus.  It's  as  if  his  little 
emerald  soul  is  bursting  to  twinkle  itself  out  of  the 
monotony  of  all  the  white  ones.  That's  what  they 
were  at  the  party  to-night,  all  white.  All  of  a  color." 

"Except  you." 

"Oh!  Do  you  know  the  names  of  the  stars,  Mr. 
Penny?" 

'I  know  the  Dipper.     It's  our  trade-mark,  you 


STAR  DUST  7i 

know.  That's  how  I  happened  to  work  out  our  nest 
of  aluminum  dippers.  Wonder  if  you  wouldn't 
permit  me  to  bring  you  out  a  set  of  those  dippers, 
Miss  Becker.  All  sizes  fitted  into  one  another.  Just 
a  little  kitchen  novelty  you  might  enjoy." 

They  were  at  her  front  steps  now,  the  hall  light 
flickering  out  over  them. 

"I  just  certainly  have  enjoyed  this  evening,  Miss 
Becker." 

"Nice  of  you  to  put  it  that  way,  Mr.  Penny," 
she  said,  trying  to  appear  unconscious  of  the  unmis 
takable  suns  in  his  eyes. 

"I — I'm  not  much  of  a  fellow  for  this  kind  of 
thing,  but  I  see  I've  been  making  a  mistake.  A 
fellow  like  myself  ought  to  get  about  more.  But 
most  of  the — er — er — ladies — young  ladies — I  have 
met,  if  you  will  pardon  my  saying  it,  haven't  been 
the  sensible  kind  like  yourself  that  a  fellow  could 
sit  down  and  have  a  talk  with." 

"I'm  not  very  congenial,  either,  Mr.  Penny,  with 
the  boys  and  girls  I  am  thrown  in  with.  Flora's  all 
right,  and  Vincent,  but  I'd  rather  stay  at  home  with 
my  music  or  a  good  book  than  waste  my  time  with 
social  life.  I  just  ache  sometimes  for  something 
better." 

"Well,  well,"  he  said,  "we  certainly  agree  in  a 
lot  of  ways.  I  thought  I  was  the  only  home  body." 

She  was  inside  the  door  now,  bare  arm  escaping 
the  cape  and  out  toward  him. 

"Good  night,  Miss  Becker.  I — I  hope  I  may  be 
permitted  to  bring  over  those  dippers  some  evening." 

"Why — er — yes,   thank  you." 

"Good  night." 

Turning  out  the  hall  light,  Lilly  felt  her  way  care 
fully  upstairs  to  save  creaks. 


72  STAR  DUST 

•"Lilly,  that  you?" 

"Yes." 

"Tear  your  dress?" 

"No." 

"Turn  out  the  hall  light?" 

"Yes." 

"Tight?    Wait.    I'm  getting  up." 

"Never  mind." 

But  during  the  process  of  Lilly's  undressing,  hud 
dled  on  the  bed  edge,  arms  hugging  herself,  Mrs. 
Becker  held  midnight  commune. 

"Who  was  there?" 

"Oh,  the  usual  crowd." 

"Refreshments?" 

"The  usual." 

"Anybody  admire  your  dress?" 

"No." 

"Don't  tell  me  too  much,  Lilly.  I  might  enjoy 
hearing  it." 

"But,  mamma,  won't  it  keep  until  to-morrow? 
I'm  sleepy  now,  dear." 

"Who  brought  you  home — Roy?" 

"A  Mr.  Penny." 

"Who?  I  thought  you  said  only  the  old  crowd 
was  there.  It's  like  pulling  teeth  to  get  a  word  out 
of  you." 

"A  friend  of  Vincent's.   Works  at  Slocum-Hines's." 

"Seems  to  me  I've  heard  your  father  mention 
that  name.  Penny — familiar.  Is  he  nice?" 

Lilly  shuddered  into  a  yawn.  In  the  long  drop  of 
nightdress  from  shoulder  to  peeping  toes,  her  hair 
cascading  straight  but  full  of  electric  fluff  to  her 
waist,  she  was  as  vibrant  and  as  eupeptic  as  Diana, 
and  as  aloof  from  desire. 

"Yes,  he's  nice  enough — " 


STAR  DUST  73 

"Penny — certainly — familiar  name." 

"— - if  you  like  him." 

"What?" 

"I  say  he's  nice  enough  if  you  like  his  kind." 

"Well,  Miss  Fastidious,  I  wish  I  knew  who  your 
kind  is." 

"I  wish  I  did  too,  mamma." 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Becker  leaned  to  the  door,  her 
voice  lifted. 

"Ben!" 

"Oh,  mamma,  he's  asleep!" 

"Oh,  Ben!" 

'  *  Mamma,  how  can  you  ? ' ' 

"Y-yes,  Carrie." 

"Isn't  that  assistant  buyer  down  at  Slocum- 
Hines's,  the  one  you  say  has  thrown  some  orders 
in  your  way,  named  Penny?" 

"Mamma,  surely  that  will  keep  until  morning." 

"Isn't  it,  Ben?" 

"Yes,  Carrie;  but  come  back  to  bed." 

"I  knew  it !  He's  one  of  the  coming  young  men  at 
Slocum-Hines's.  Vincent  Bankhead  swears  by  him. 
He  throws  some  fine  orders  in  your  papa's  way.  I 
knew  the  name  had  a  ring.  Lilly,  did  he  ask  to — 
call?" 

"Mamma,  I'm  sleepy." 

"Did  he?" 

1 ;  Yes — maybe — sometime. ' ' 

Then  Mrs.  Becker,  full  of  small,  eager  ways, 
insisted  upon  tucking  her  daughter  into  bed,  patting 
the  light  coverlet  well  up  under  her  chin  and  opening 
the  windows. 

"Good  night,  baby,"  she  said,  giving  the  covers  a 
final  pat.  "Sleep  tight  and  don't  get  up  for  break 
fast.  I  want  to  bring  it  up  to  you." 


74  STAR  DUST 

But,  contrary  to  the  blandishment,  Lilly  lay 
awake,  open-eyed,  for  quite  a  round  hour  after  her 
mother's  voice,  broken  into  occasionally  by  the 
patient  but  sleepy  tones  of  her  father,  had  died  down. 

From  her  window  she  could  see  quite  a  patch  of 
sky,  finely  powdered  with  stars,  the  Dipper  pricked 
out  boldly. 

For  some  reason,  regarding  it,  a  layer  of  tears 
formed  on  her  eyes  and  dried  over  her  hot  stare. 


CHAPTER  X 

ON  the  6th  of  the  following  July,  Lilly  Becker 
and  Albert  Penny  were  married. 

The  day  dawned  one  of  those  imperturbable  blues 
that  hang  over  that  latitude  of  the  country  like  a 
hot  wet  blanket  steaming  down.  The  corn  belt 
shriveled  of  thirst.  The  automobile  had  not  yet 
bitten  so  deeply  into  the  country  roads,  but  even  a 
light  horse  and  buggy  traveled  in  a  whirligig  of  its 
own  dust.  St.  Louis  lay  stark  as  if  riveted  there  by 
the  Cyclopean  eye  of  the  sun.  For  twenty-four 
hours  the  weather  vanes  of  the  great  Middle  West 
stood  stock-still  while  July  came  in  like  a  lion. 
The  city  slept  in  strange,  improvised  beds  drawn  up 
beside  windows  or  made  up  on  floors,  and  awoke 
enervated  and  damp  at  the  back  of  the  neck. 

Throughout  the  Becker  household,  however,  the 
morning  moved  with  a  whir,  the  newly  installed 
telephone  lifting  its  shrill  scream,  delivery  wagons 
at  the  door,  the  horses  panting  under  wet  sponges 
and  awning  hats,  Georgia  wide-eyed  at  the  con 
currence  of  events. 

For  the  half-dozenth  time  that  morning  Mrs. 
Becker  suffered  a  little  collapse,  dropping  down  to 
the  kitchen  chair  or  hall  bench,  fanning  herself  with 
the  end  of  her  apron. 

"I'm  dead!  Another  day  like  this  will  finish  me. 
Georgia,  have  you  polished  the  door  bell?  Those 
delivery  boys  finger  it  up  so.  I'm  wringing  wet  with 
prespiration.  If  only  there  is  a  breeze  in  the  church 


76  STAR  DUST 

to-night.  Georgia,  if  that  is  Mr.  Albert  on  the  tele 
phone,  tell  him  Miss  Lilly  isn't  going  to  leave  her 
room  until  noon.  No,  wait.  I  want  to  speak  to 
him  myself.  Hello,  Albert?  Well,  bridegroom,  good 
;  morning ! . . .  What's  left  of  me  is  fine. . . .  I'm  making 
her  stay  in  her  room.  Poor  child,  she's  all  nerves. 
Don't  be  late.  I  hate  last-minute  weddings.  Did 
you  see  the  item  in  the  morning  Globe?  .  .  .  Yes,  the 
name  is  spelled  wrong,  Pen-nie,  but  there's  quite  a 
few  lines.  'In  lieu  of  a  honeymoon,'  it  goes  on  to 
say,  'the  young  couple  will  go  to  housekeeping  at 
once  in  their  new  home,  5199  Page  Avenue,  directly 
across  from  the  parents  of  the  bride.'  I'm  sending 
over  now  to  have  all  the  windows  opened  so  it  won't 
be  stuffy  for  you  to-night.  Wait  until  you  see  the 
presents,  Albert,  that  came  this  morning.  A  check 
for  five  hundred  dollars  all  the  way  from  her  uncle 
Buck  in  Alaska.  That  makes  six  hundred  in  checks. 
Three  beautiful  clocks,  a  dozen  berry  spoons  from 
my  euchre  club,  and  an  invitation  in  poetry  for  her 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Junior  Matron  Friday 
Club.  If  I  wasn't  so  rushed  I  think  I — I  could  just 
sit  down  and  have  a  good  cry.  Albert,  be  careful  of 
those  silk  sleeve  garters  I  sent  you  for  your  wedding 
shirt,  don't  adjust  them  too  tight;  and  you  know 
how  you  catch  cold.  Don't  perspire  and  go  in  a 
draught.  And — and  Albert,  I  see  I  have  to  remind 
you  of  little  things  the  way  I  do  Ben.  You  men 
wi^h  your  heads  so  chock  full  of  business!"  (Very 
sot  lo  wee. )  '  *  Send  Lilly  flowers  this  afternoon .  Lilies- 
of-the-valley  and  white  rosebuds.  Remley's  on  your 
corner  is  a  good  place.  Tell  them  your  mother-in- 
law  is  a  good  customer  and  they'll  give  you  a  little 
discount.  .  .  .  Yes,  she's  upset,  poor  child.  I  was  the 
same  way.  My  mother  almost  had  to  shove  me  into 


STAR  DUST  77 

the  carriage.  Well,  Albert,  call  up  again  about  noon. 
She'll  be  up  by  then.  Good-by—son." 

A  pox  of  perspiration  was  out  over  her  face, 
sparkling  forth  again  after  each  mopping.  A  box 
arrived  from  a  jeweler's  and  one  from  a  department 
store.  They  'were  a  pie  knife  and  a  table  crumber 
in  the  form  of  a  miniature  carpet  sweeper.  The 
usual  futilities  with  which  such  occasions  can  be 
cluttered  and  which  have  shaped  the  destinies  of 
immemorial  women  into  a  tyranny  of  petty  things. 

Then  Mrs.  Becker  hurried  upstairs,  her  white 
wrapper  floating  after. 

In  the  bathroom  her  husband  leaned  to  a  mirror, 
his  jaw  line  thrust  to  the  cleave  of  a  razor. 

"I  really  envy  you,  Ben.  Not  even  your  daugh 
ter's  wedding  day  can  disturb  you.  For  a  cent  I 
could  cry  my  eyes  out.  It's  only  excitement  keeps 
me  going.  I — could — c-c-cry." 

"Now,  now,  little  woman." 

She  sat  down  on  a  hall  chair,  regarding  him  through 
the  open  bathroom  door. 

"Has  she  said  anything  to  you,  Ben,  since  yester 
day?  It's  made  me  so  upset." 

"Now,  now,  little  woman,  you  must  make  allow 
ances  for  a  young  girl's  nervousness." 

"I  know,  Ben,  but  it  worries  me  so.  It's  not 
natural  for  her  to  have  crying  spells  like  that  one 
yesterday." 

"Nonsense!  I'm  not  so  sure  you  weren't  a  red- 
eyed  bride." 

"My  nervousness  wasn't  anything  like  hers. 
She'll  make  herself  sick." 

"You  mean  you  will." 

"Have  you  heard  her  moving  about  her  room 
yet?"  u 


78  STAR   DUST 

"No." 

"Shall  I  knock?" 

"No,  Carrie;  now  let  the  child  alone  this  morning." 

"I  never  knew  her  to  stay  in  bed  so  long.  It's 
after  eleven,  and  the  hair  dresser  coming  at  twelve. 
It  will  seem  funny,  won't  it,  Ben,  her — little  room 
empty  to-night." 

"Now,  now,  no  waterworks.  What  if  she  was 
moving  away  to  another  city  instead  of  just  settling 
down  across  the  street  ?  You  worked  this  thing 
your  way,  and  even  now  you  don't  feel  satisfied." 

"I  do  feel  satisfied,  Ben,  but  I  want  her  to  be,  too." 

"Now,  little  woman,  mark  my  word,  Lilly  may 
feel  that  she  is  doing  this  thing  in  more  or  less  of  a 
spirit  of  sacrifice  to  our  pleasure,  but  inside  of  a 
week  she'll  be  as  busy  and  happy  a  little  housekeeper 
as  her  mother." 

"Is  that  her  calling?" 

"Yes.    Go  to  her,  Carrie." 

Out  in  the  little  upper  square  of  hallway  Lilly 
appeared  suddenly,  her  hair  still  down  in  the  beau 
tiful  way  she  let  it  toss  about  her  in  sleep,  and  her 
body  boldly  outlined  in  a  Japanese  kimono  she  held 
tightly  about  her. 

"Mamma,  will  you  and  papa  please  come  to  my 
room?  I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

"Your  father  is  shaving,  Lilly.  Can't  you  talk  to 
us  out  here?  How  is  our  girl  on  her  wedding  day? 
Frightened?  You're  me  all  over  again.  Ask  your 
father  if  I  wasn't  as  pale  as  you  are."  She  kissed 
her  daughter  on  lips  that  were  cold,  brushing  back 
the  shower  of  hair  from  her  shoulders.  "You  ought 
to  see  the  presents,  Lilly,  that  just— 

"Mamma — papa — you  must  listen." 

"Yes,  -..illy." 


STAR  DUST  79 

"Please,  won't  you  let  me  off?    Please!" 

Her  father  regarded  her  from  behind  the  white 
mud  of  lather,  his  eyes  darkening  up. 

"Now,  now,  sweetheart,"  he  said,  using  one  of 
his  rarest  words  of  endearment,  "this  won't  do 
at  all." 

"But  I  can't,  papa.  I  just  can't.  I  know  it's 
terrible,  this  last  minute,  but — but — I  tell  you — I 
can't." 

"My  God,  Ben!" 

"Can't  what,  Lilly?" 

"Can't!  I  never  had  such  a  funny — a  terrible 
feeling.  I  can't  explain  it,  only  let  me  off.  Please! 
It's  not  too  late.  Lots  of  girls  have  done  it — found 
out  at  the  last  minute  they  couldn't — " 

"My  God!  What  are  we  to  do,  Ben?    Ben!" 

"Carrie,  if  only  you  will  hold  your  horses  I'll 
handle  this."  He  mopped  off  his  face  hurriedly, 
sliding  into  a  dressing  gown. 

"Come  now,  Lilly,  into  the  front  room.  Sit 
down." 

She  moved  after  him  with  the  rather  groping  look 
of  the  blind. 

"Now  what  is  this  nonsense,  Lilly,  you've  been 
hinting  these  last  few  days?" 

"I've  made  a  mistake,  papa.  I  should  have  said 
so  weeks — ago — from  the  start.  It  isn't  Albert's 
fault.  It  isn't  anybody's  fault.  I've  had  it  all 
along,  this  queer  feeling  all  through  the  engagement 
and  parties,  but  I  kept  hoping  for  your  sakes  I'd  get 
over  it — hoping — in  vain — " 

"Why,  of  course,  Lilly,  you'll  get  over  it!  It's 
natural  for  a  young  girl  to  feel — " 

"No!  No!  My  feeling  won't  lift!  If  only  I  had 
said  nothing  the  night  he — proposed.  But  mamma 


80  STAR  DUST 

was  waiting  up.  She — she  pressed  me  so.  It  was 
so  hard  the  way  you  put  it.  I  know  he's  a  fine 
fellow.  I  know,  papa,  he's  thrown  big  orders  in 
your  way.  But  I  can't  help  being  what  I  am. 
Please,  papa,  let  me  off!  Please!" 

An  actual  shrinkage  of  face  seemed  to  have  taken 
place  in  Mrs.  Becker. 

"What  '11  we  do?  What  '11  we  do,  Ben? "  she  kept 
repeating,  rocking  herself  back  and  forth  in  what 
seemed  to  border  on  dementia. 

"You  see,  papa,  it's  only  to  be  a  small  wedding. 
We  could  so  easily  call  things  off.  I'll  take  all  the 
blame—" 

"No!    No!    No!" 

"Mamma  dear,  I'm  as  sorry — about  it  as  you  are, 
but—" 

"No!  No!  She's  ruining  our  lives,  Ben — 
disgracing — " 

"Lilly,  are  you  sure  that  you  are  telling  us 
everything?" 

"I  swear  it,  papa.  I  know  I'm  inarticulate,  I 
don't  seem  able  to  explain  the  terrible  state  I've  been 
in  for  days — •" 

"It's  nervousness,  Lilly." 

"I  tell  you,  no!  I  can't  make  you  understand. 
But  I'm  not  cut  out,  papa,  for  what  I'm  going  to 
settle  down  to.  I'm  something  else  than  what  you 
think  I  am.  I  guess  I — I  am  a  sort  of  botanical 
sport,  papa,  off  our  f amily  tree.  I  know  what  you're 
going  to  say,  and  maybe  you're  right.  I  may  have 
more  ideas  than  I  have  talent,  but  let  me  go  my 


way.    Let  me  be  what  I  am." 

"Lilly,  Lilly,  let  us  take  this  thing  step  by  step, 
quietly.  Surely,  daughter,  you  appreciate  the 
enormitv  of  the  situation!'* 


STAR  DUST  81 

"I  do.    I  do." 

"Now  to  go  back  to  the  beginning.  Did  you  con 
sent  to  this  engagement  of  your  own  free  will?" 

"I  did  and  I  didn't." 

"You  didn't?" 

"Oh,  I  know  you  let  me  decide  for  myself,  but 
don't  you  think  I  felt  the  undercurrent  of  your-Oj 
attitudes?    All  the  other  girls  settling  down,  as  you 
put  it.    You  and  Albert  such  good  friends,  and  then 
Albert  himself  so — so  what  he  should  be." 

"Now  you  are  talking.  If  your  mother  and  I 
hadn't  felt  that  Albert  was  the  fine  and  upright  man 
for  their  little  girl  to  marry,  do  you  think  they  would 
have—" 

"I  know!  There  we  go  around  in  the  circle  again. 
Everything  is  perfect.  The  little  house,  Albert's 
promotion  to  first  assistant.  Everything  perfect, 
but  me.  I  don't  want  it.  I  don't  love  him.  You 
hear  me!  There  is  something  in  me  he  hasn't 
touched.  Respect  him?  Yes,  but  respect  is  only  a 
poor  relation  to  love  and  comes  in  for  the  left-over 
and  the  cast-off  emotions." 

"Her  head  is  full  of  the  novels  she  reads!" 

"You  can't  keep  me  from  thinking  like  a  woman. 
Feeling  like  one.  Is  it  shameful  to  want  to  love? 
Is  it  wrong  to  desire  in  the  man  you  are  to  marry  7 
that  fundamental  passion  that  makes  the  world  go 
around?  I'm  not  supposed  to  know  anything  about 
the  thing  I'm  plunging  into  until  after  I've  plunged! 
I'm  afraid,  papa.  Save  me!" 

"Ben,  I  could  swear  who  is  at  the  bottom  of  this 
indecent  talk  of  hers.  I  found  his  picture  cut  out 
of  the  school  magazine  and  pasted  in  her  diaiy. 
She's  a  changed  child  since  that  Lindsley  came  to 
the  High  School  the  year  before  she  graduated." 


82  STAR  DUST 

"Mamma!  Mamma!"  fairly  exploded  to  her  feet 
by  the  potency  of  her  sense  of  outrage.  "Oh,  you — 
you—" 

"I  know  I'm  right." 

"Why,  I  haven't  even  seen  him  since  I  graduated! 
I've  never  talked  ten  words  to  the  man  in  my  life! 
Oh — oh — how  can  you?" 

"Just  the  same,  he's  been  your  ruination.  Since 
you  got  him  into  your  head  not  one  of  the  boys  you 
met  has  been  good  enough.  I  knew  you  had  him  in 
mind  the  day  you  told  me  you  wished  Albert  was  a 
little  more  bookish  and  musical.  I  know  why  you 
wanted  him  to  subscribe  to  the  Symphony.  The 
spats  you  made  him  buy.  Poor  boy !  and  his  ankles 
aren't  cut  for  them.  Love!  Your  father  and  I 
weren't  so  much  in  love,  let  me  tell  you.  Only  I 
knew  my  parents  wanted  it  and  that  was  enough. 
I  wish  to  God  I'd  never  lived  to  see  this  day — " 

"Carrie!" 

"I  do.  Noon  of  my  daughter's  wedding  day,  and 
she  can't  make  up  her  mind  whether  she'll  be  mar 
ried  or  not.  O  God!  it's  funny — love,  now  at  the 
last  minute — oh — oh — "  A  geyser  of  hysteria  shot 
up,  raining  down  in  a  glassy  kind  of  laugh.  "Oh — 
oh,  it's  funny! — love — " 

"Carrie,    you're    hysterical.      Here,    smell    this 


ammonia." 


' '  The  little  houpe— my  heart's  blood  in  it.  A  doll's 
house,  ready  for  her  to  walk  into.  Membership  in  the 
Junior  Matrons — trousseau — oh,  it's  funny — funny — ' ' 

"For  God's  sake,  papa,  try  to  calm  her!" 

' '  Funny — funny — funny. " 

With  a  wave  of  sobs  that  broke  over  her,  she  went 
down,  then,  literally  to  her  knees,  her  back  heaving 
and  shuddering. 


STAR  DUST  83 

"Her  wedding  day— O  God— funny— " 

"Mamma!  Mamma!  It's  all  right,  dear.  Don't 
— holler  like  that.  I  just  got  upset,  that's  all. 
Frightened  like — like  any  other  girl  would.  I'm 
all  right  now,  mamma.  I'm  sorry." 

"We  want  to  see  you  happy,  baby.  It's  for  your 
good." 

"Of  course  you  do.  I  know  it.  I'm  all  right  now, 
mamma." 

"We're  your  best  friends,  Lilly.  We  would  go 
through  fire  for  you." 

"Of  course,  mamma.  I — I  was  nervous,  that's 
all." 

"There's  no  finer  boy  breathes  than  Albert." 

"You're  right." 

"He's  sending  you  lilies-of -the- valley,  baby.  He's 
ordered  himself  some  white-flannel  tennis  pants, 
too — the  kind  you  admired.  He  got  his  report  from 
the  life-insurance  people  and  he's  a  grand  risk, 
Lilly.  In  as  fine  a  condition  to  marry  as  a  man 
could  be.  Baby,  tell  me — tell  papa — aren't  you 
happy?" 

"I  am — I — oh,  I  am,  dear!  Why,  here  is  Elsa 
ready  to  dress  my  hair!  Mamma— dear — I'm  all 
right  now.  Fine." 

At  eight  o'clock  that  evening,  in  the  Garrison 
Avenue  Rock  Church,  little  Evelyn  Kemble,  in  the 
bushiest  of  white  skirts  and  to  the  accompaniment 
of  organ  music  rolling  over  her,  placed  a  white-satin 
cushion  before  the  smilax-banked  altar. 

Kneeling  on  it,  and  to  the  antiphonal  beat  of  the 
Reverend  Stickney's  voice,  Lilly  Becker  and  Albert 
Penny  became  as  one. 


CHAPTER  XI 

BY  a  strange  conspiracy  of  middle-class  morality, 
which  clothes  the  white  nude  of  life  in  suggestive 
factory-made  garments,  and  by  her  own  sheer  sap- 
piness,  which  vitalized  her,  but  with  the  sexlessness 
of  a  young  tree,  Lilly,  with  all  her  rather  puerile 
innocence  left  her,  walked  into  her  marriage  like  a 
blind  Nydia,  hands  out  and  groping  sensitively. 

The  same,  in  a  measure,  was  true  of  Albert,  who 
came  into  his  immaculate  inheritance,  himself  im 
maculate,  but  with  a  nervous  system  well  insulated 
by  a  great  cautiousness  of  life. 

He  was  highly  subject  to  head  colds  and  oc 
casional  attacks  of  dyspepsia,  due  to  his  inability 
to  abstain  from  certain  foods.  He  was,  therefore, 
sensitive  to  draughts  and  would  not  eat  hot  bread. 
He  carried  an  umbrella  absolutely  upon  all  occasions 
and  a  celluloid  toothpick  in  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

Then,  too,  he  gargled.  To  chronicle  the  heroic 
emotions  that  motivate  men  is  a  fine  task.  Love  and 
hate  and  all  the  chemistry  of  their  mingling  that  go 
to  form  the  plasma  of  human  experience.  It  is  a 
lesser,  even  an  ignominious  one  to  narrate  Lilly 's 
kind  of  anguish  during  this  matinal  performance  of 
her  husband.  She  suffered  a  tight-throated  sort  of 
anguish  that  could  have  been  no  keener  had  it  been 
of  larger  provocation.  Her  toes  and  her  fingers 
would  curl  and  a  quick  ripple  of  flesh  rush  over  her. 

Mornings,  when  he  departed,  his  kiss,  which 
smelled  of  mouth  wash,  would  remain  coldly  against 


STAR  DUST  85 

her  lips  with  the  peculiar  burn  of  camphor  ice.  All 
her  sensibilities  seemed  suddenly  to  fester. 

On  a  week  day  of  the  third  week  of  her  marriage, 
in  her  little  canary  cage  of  a  yellow  bedroom  domi 
nated  with  the  monstrous  brass  bedstead  of  the 
period  and  a  swell-front  dresser  elaborate  in  Hon- 
iton  and  flat  silver,  she  endured,  with  her  head 
crushed  into  the  chair  back,  those  noisome  ablutions 
from  across  the  hallway.  She  was  wearing,  these 
first  mornings,  a  rose-colored  negligee,  foamy  with 
lace  and  still  violet  scented  from  the  trousseau 
chest,  and  especially  designed  to  pink  this  early  hour. 

It  lay  light  to  a  skin  that,  strangely  enough,  did 
not  covet  its  sensual  touch.  She  craved  back  to  the 
starchy  blue-gingham  morning  dresses.  It  was  as  if 
she  sat  among  the  ruins  of  those  crispy  potential 
yesterdays,  all  her  to-morrows  ruthlessly  and  terribly 
solved. 

Something  swift  and  eager  had  died  within  her. 
She  was  herself  gone  flabby.  A  wife,  with  a  sudden 
and,\  to  her,  horrid  new  consciousness  that  had 
twisted-  every  ligament  of  life. 

Her  husband's  collar  so  intimately  there  on  the 
dresser  top.  His  shirt,  awaiting  studs,  spread  out 
on  the  bed — their  bed.  His  suspenders  straddling 
the  chair  back.  The  ordering  of  the  evening  beef 
steak  lurking  back  in  her  consciousness.  He  liked 
sirloin,  stabbing  it  vertically  (he  had  a  way  of  holding 
his  fork  upright  between  first  and  third  fingers) 
when  he  carved,  and  cutting  it  skillfully  away  from 
the  T  bone.  After  the  first  week,  he  liked  the  bone, 
too,  gnawing  it,  not  mussily,  but  with  his  broad 
white  teeth  predatory  and  his  temples  working. 
She  was  a  veritable  bundle  of  these  petty  accumu 
lated  concepts  ^arrowed  to  their  quick. 


86  STAR  DUST 

She  knew  that  presently  he  would  enter  the  room 
in  his  trousers  and  undershirt,  which  he  did  upon 
the  very  minute,  the  little  purple  circle,  like  a  stamp 
mark  on  the  rind  of  a  bacon,  showing  just  beneath 
his  Adam's  apple,  the  shag  of  his  yellow  hair  wetly 
curly  from  dousing,  like  a  spaniel's. 

"Certainly  fine  water  pressure  we  have  in  the 
bathroom,  Lilly.  I  am  going  to  bring  home  some 
tubing  from  the  store  and  attach  a  spray." 

She  looked  out  of  the  window  over  the  languid 
little  patch  of  front  lawn,  more  gray  than  green  from 
the  scourge  of  heat.  Insect  life  hung  midair  like  a 
curtain  of  buzzings.  Directly  opposite  the  dusty, 
unmade  street,  she  could  see  her  parents'  home 
standing  unprotected  except  for  one  sapling  maple, 
the  sun  already  pressing  against  the  drawn  shades. 
There  was  a  slight  breeze  through  this  morning  that 
turned  the  sapling  leaves  and  even  lifted  the  little 
twist  of  tendril  at  the  nape  of  Lilly's  neck. 

It  was  just  that  spot,  while  tugging  at  his  collar, 
that  Albert  Penny  stooped  to  kiss. 

"Little  wife/' he  said. 

44  Ugh!  "she  felt. 

"Poor  little  wife,  it  was  ninety-four  and  a  half  at 
six-thirty-eight  this  morning." 

His  capacity  for  accuracy  could  madden  her. 
He  computed  life  in  the  minutiae  of  fractions,  reckon 
ing  in  terms  of  the  halfpenny,  the  half  minute,  the 
half  degree. 

She  sat  now,  laying  pleats  in  the  pink  negligee 
where  it  flowed  over  her  knees,  a  half  smile  forced 
out  on  her  lips. 

"Well,  Albert,"  she  said,  wanting  to  keep  her  voice 
lifted,  "I  guess  we're  in  it,  aren't  we?  Up  to  our 
necks." 


STAR  DUST  87 

"In  what?" 

"Marriage." 

Leaning  to  the  mirror  for  the  adjustment  of  his 
collar  button,  he  paused,  regarding  her  reflection. 

"Well  now,  what  an  idea!  Of  course  we're  in  it, 
and  the  wonder  to  me  is  how  we  ever  stayed  out  so 
long." 

She  reached  up  to  yawn,  her  long  white  arms 
stretched  above  her  head. 

"Oh  dear!  oh  dear!  oh  dear!"  she  said  in  what 
might  have  been  the  key  of  anything. 

"Poor  little  girl!"  he  said.  "I  wish  I  could  make 
it  cooler  for  you." 

"It  isn't  that." 

"What  then  is  bothering  your  little  head?" 

"I — oh,  I  don't  know.  I  guess  it's  just  the  reac 
tion  after  the  excitement  of  the  wedding." 

He  came  back  to  kiss  the  same  tendril  at  the  nape 
of  her  neck. 

"I'm  glad  it's  over,  too.  Feels  mighty  good  to 
settle  down." 

' '  Settle  down. '    Somehow  I  hate  that  expression. ' ' 

"All  right,  then,  Mrs.  Penny,  we'll  settle  up. 
Speaking  of  settling  up,  I  guess  the  missus  wants  her 
Monday -morning  allowance,  doesn't  she?" 

"I — guess — so." 

He  placed  three  already  counted  out  five-dollar 
bills  on  the  dresser,  weighting  them  down  with  a 
silver-back  mirror. 

"See  if  you  can't  make  it  last  this  week,  Lilly. 
You  watch  Mother  Becker  market  and  you'll  come 
out  all  right." 

"Oh,  I  can't  pick  around  raw  meat  the  way 
mamma  does.  It  makes  me  sick." 

"Housekeeping  may  seem  a  little  strange  at  first, 


88  STAR  DUST 

but  I'm  not  afraid  my  little  wife  is  going  to  let  any 
of  them  get  ahead  of  her." 

"Whoever  wants  it,  can  have  that  honor." 

"What?" 

"Nothing." 

"What's  the  program  for  to-day,  Lilly?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know." 

"I'm  going  to  send  Joe  out  from  the  store  to-day 
with  some  washers  for  the  kitchen  faucets  and  some 
poultry  netting  for  a  chicken  yard.  I'll  potter 
around  this  evening  and  build  one  behind  the  wood 
shed.  Chickens  give  a  place  a  right  homey  touch." 

"And  send  out  a  man  from  Knatt's  to  fix  the  piano. 
They  delivered  it  with  a  middle  C  that  sticks." 

"Yes,  and  I'll  send  a  can  of  Killbug  out  with  the 
wire.  I  noticed  a  cockroach  run  over  the  ice  box  last 
night.  You  must  watch  that  a  little,  even  in  a  new 
house." 

"Ugh!" 

"I  hope  I'm  not  getting  a  cold.  I  feel  kind  of  that 
way.  Mother  Becker  fixed  me  up  fine  with  that  wet 
cloth  around  my  neck  last  time.  I'll  try  it  to-night." 

"Come,"  she  said,  "breakfast  is  ready." 

They  descended  to  the  little  oak  dining  room, 
quite  a  glitter  of  new  cut  glass  on  the  sideboard  and 
the  round  table  white  and  immaculately  spread. 
There  was  a  little  maidservant,  Lena  Obendorfer, 
the  fifteen-year-old  daughter  of  the  Kemble  washer 
woman,  shy  and  red  rims  about  her  eyes  from  secret 
tears  of  homesickness. 

"Why,  Lena,  the  breakfast  table  looks  lovely;  and 
don't  forget,  dearie,  Mr.  Penny  takes  three  eggs  in 
the  morning,  and  he  doesn't  like  his  rolls  heated." 

The  child,  her  poor  flat  face  pock-marked,  flut 
tered  into  service. 


STAR  DUST  89 

Lilly  regarded  her  husband  through  his  meal, 
elbows  on  table,  cheek  in  her  palm.  He  ate  the 
three  two-minute  eggs  with  gusto,  alternating  with 
deep  draughts  of  coffee,  and  crisp  little  ribbons  of 
bacon  made  into  a  sandwich  between  his  rolls. 

"This  is  certainly  delicious  bacon." 

" Mamma  sent  a  whole  one  over  yesterday." 

"I  like  it  lean.  Always  buy  it  with  plenty  of  dark 
streaks  through  it.  Don't  you  like  it  lean?" 

Silence. 

"Can't  you  eat,  Lilly?    That's  a  shame." 

"Too  hot." 

"Poor  girlie!" 

"Lena,  bring  Mr.  Penny  some  more  bacon." 

"Certainly  delicious.    I  like  it  lean." 

She  watched  his  temples  quiver  to  the  motion  of 
his  jaws,  her  unspeakable  depression  tightening  up 
her  tonsils  and  the  very  pit  of  her  scared  and  empty. 

"Albert—" 

"Urn-hum!" 

"I—  What  if  you  should  find  that  I— I'm  not— 
not—" 

"What?" 

"Not  right — here.    Not  the — wife  for  you." 

He  leaned  over  to  pinch  her  cheek,  waggling  it 
softly  and  masticating  well  before  he  spoke. 

"If  my  little  wife  suited  me  any  better  they  would 
have  to  chain  me  down.  Ah,  it's  great!  I  tell  you, 
Lilly,  a  man  makes  the  mistake  of  his  life  not  to  do 
it  earlier.  If  I  had  it  to  do  over  again  I'd  marry  at 
twenty.  Solid  comfort.  Something  to  work  for.  I 
feel  five  years  closer  to  the  general  managership 
than  I  did  six  months  ago.  Certainly  fine  bacon. 
Best  I  ever  ate." 

"Albert — let  us  not  permit  our  marriage  to  drag 


90  STAR  DUST 

us  down  into  the  kind  of  rut  we  see  all  about  us. 
Take  Flora  and  Vincent.  Married  five  months  and 
she  never  so  much  as  wears  corsets  when  she  takes 
him  to  the  street  car,  mornings.  And  he  used  to  be 
such  a  clever  dresser,  and  look  at  him  now.  All 
baggy.  Let's  not  get  baggy,  Albert." 

' '  I  agree  with  you  there.  A  man  owes  it  to  himself 
and  his  business  to  appear  well  pressed.  It's  a  slogan 
of  mine.  Clothes  may  not  make  the  man,  but  neat 
ness  often  goes  a  long  way  toward  making  the  oppor 
tunity.  Don't  you  worry  about  me  becoming  baggy, 
Lilly.  I'm  going  to  send  one  of  those  folding  ironing 
boards  up  from  the  store  this  day." 

"I  don't  mean  only  that.  You  mustn't  be  so 
literal  about  everything.  I  mean  let's  not  become 
baggy-minded.  Take  Flora  again.  Flora  was  her 
class  poetess  and  I  don't  believe  she  has  a  literary 
thought  or  a  book  in  her  head  now  except  her  ac 
count  book.  Let  us  improve  ourselves,  Albert. 
Read  evenings  and  subscribe  to  the  Symphony  and 
the  Rubinstein  Evening  Choral." 

"Speaking  of  Rubinstein,  Lilly,  I'm  going  to  take 
out  a  thousand  dollars'  burglary  insurance  with 
Eckstein.  One  cannot  be  too  careful." 

She  pushed  back  from  the  table.  "We're  invited 
over  to  the  Duncans'  to-night  for  supper.  They've 
one  of  the  new  self -playing  pianos." 

He  felt  in  his  waistcoat  pocket  for  the  toothpick. 

"I'll  go  if  you  want  it,  Lilly,  but  guess  where  I'd 
rather  eat  my  supper." 

"Where?" 

"Right  here.  And  fry  the  sirloin  the  way  Mother 
Becker  does  it,  Lilly;  sprinkle  a  few  onions  on  it. 
If  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  let  Lena  tackle  it." 

"This  is  the  third  night  for  beefsteak." 


STAR  DUST  91 

"Fine.    You'll  learn  this  about  your  hubby,  he — ' 

"Don't  use  that  word,  Albert.    I  hate  it." 

"What?" 

"Hubby." 

"All  right  then,  husband.  Bless  her  heart,  she 
likes  to  hear  the  real  thing.  Well  then,  your  husband 
is  a  beefsteak  fellow.  Let  the  others  have  all  the 
ruffly  dishes  they  want.  Good  strong  beefsteak  is 
my  pace." 

She  let  him  lift  her  face  for  a  kiss. 

"I'll  be  home  six-forty-six  to  the  dot.  That's 
what  I've  figured  out  it  takes  me  if  I  leave  the  office 
at  six-five." 

He  kissed  her  again,  pressing  her  head  backward 
against  the  cove  of  his  arm,  pinching  her  cheeks 
together  so  that  her  mouth  puckered. 

"Won't  kiss  my  little  wife  on  the  lips  this  morning. 
I'm  getting  a  head  cold.  Good-by,  Mrs.  Penny. 
Um-m-m!  like  to  say  it." 

"Good-by." 

"Mother  Becker  coming  over  to-day?" 
'Yes.    We  had  planned  to  go  to  the  meat  market 
together." 

"Fine." 

"But  I'm  not  going." 

"Why?" 

"I— don't  know.    Too  hot,  I  guess." 

He  looked  at  her  rather  intently. 

"That's  right,  Lilly,"  he  said,  his  eyes,  with 
something  new  in  them,  roving  over  her  figure;  "if 
you  don't  feel  up  to  the  mark,  just  you  take  care  of 
yourself.  Jove ! "  he  repeated.  ' ' Jove ! ' '  kissed  her 
again,  and  went  down  the  front  steps,  whistling. 

7 


CHAPTER  XII 

AT  eleven  o'clock  Mrs.  Becker,  hatted,  crossed 
the  sun-bleached  street,  carrying  outheld  some 
thing  that  wetted  through  the  snowy  napkin  that 
covered  it.  At  the  door  she  surrendered  it  to  Lena. 

"Put  this  in  the  ice  box  for  Mr.  Albert's  supper. 
It's  some  of  my  coldslaw  he's  so  fond  of,  and  a  pound 
of  sweet  butter,  I  took  from  my  dairyman.  See  that 
Miss  Lilly  never  uses  it  for  cooking,  Lena;  the  salt 
butter  I  brought  yesterday  is  for  that." 

"Yes'm." 

"And,  Lena,"  drawing  a  palm  across  the  banister 
and  showing  it  up,  "look.  That  isn't  nice.  In  my 
house  I  go  over  every  piece  of  woodwork  from  top 
to  bottom  on  my  hands  and  knees.  You  mustn't 
wait  for  Miss  Lilly  to  tell  you  everything.  Where  is 
she?" 

"Upstairs,  ma'am." 

She  ascended  to  a  jeremiad  of  the  cardinal  laws  of 
housekeeping,  palm  still  suspicious.  Her  daughter 
rose  out  of  a  low  mound  beside  the  window. 

"Good  morning,  mamma." 

"Lilly,  you  should  help  upstairs  wash  days  with 
the  housework.  Eight  o'clock  and  my  house  is 
spick  span,  even  my  cellar  steps  wiped  down.  Take 
off  that  pink  thing  and  I'll  help  you  make  the  bed. 
It  was  all  right  to  wear  it  around  the  first  week  for 
your  husband,  but  now  one  of  your  cotton  crapes 
will  do.  Come,  help  turn  the  mattress." 

"Oh,  mamma,  Lena  will  make  the  bed." 


STAR   DUST  93 

"Who  ever  heard  of  not  doing  your  upstairs  work 
on  wash  day?  Really,  Lilly,  I  was  ignorant  as  a 
bride,  too,  but  I  wasn't  lazy.  I  wouldn't  give  a  row 
of  pins  for — " 

''Please,  mamma — don't  begin." 

"Well,  it's  your  house.  If  it  suits  your  husband, 
it  suits  me.'* 

"Well,  it  does  suit  him." 

"Not  if  I  judge  him  right.  Albert  likes  order.  I 
went  over  his  socks  the  other  day,  and  he  kept  them 
matched  up  as  a  bachelor  just  like  a  woman  would. 
He's  methodical." 

"Don't  lift  that  heavy  mattress  alone,  mamma. 
Here,  if  you  insist  upon  doing  it,  I'll  help." 

They  dressed  the  bed  to  its  snowy  perfection,  a 
Honiton  counterpane  over  pink  falling  almost  to 
the  floor. 

"Well,  that's  more  like  it."  Her  face  quickly 
moist  from  exertion,  Mrs.  Becker  regarded  her 
daughter  across  the  completed  task. 

"Now  for  the  carpet  sweeper." 

Lilly  returned  to  her  chair,  lying  back  to  fan  her 
face  with  a  lacy  fribble  of  pocket  handkerchief, 
"You  can  wear  yourself  out  if  you  insist,  mamma, 
but  I  can't  see  any  reason  for  it.  I'm — tired." 

Mrs.  Becker  sat  down,  hitching  her  chair  toward 
her  daughter's. 

"Lilly,"  she  said,  eagerly  forward  and  a  highly 
specialized  significance  in  her  voice,  "don't  you  feel 
well— baby?" 

"Of  course  I  feel  well,  mamma.  As  well  as  anyone 
can  feel  in  this  heat.  If  only  you  wouldn't  harass 
me  about  this — old  house." 

Mrs.  Becker  withdrew,  her  entire  manner  lifting 
with  her  shoulders. 


94  STAR  DUST 

"Well,  if  that's  the  way  you  feel  about  it,  you 
need  not  be  afraid  that  I'm  going  to  interfere. 
That's  one  thing  I  made  up  my  mind  to  from  the 
start,  never  to  be  a  professional  mother-in-law  in 
my  daughter's  home.  The  idea!" 

"Mamma,  I  didn't  mean  it  that  way,  and  you 
know  it.  I  realize  that  you  mean  well.  But  I  sup 
pose  many  a  family  skeleton  rattles  its  bones  to  the 
tune  of  'they  meant  well." 

"Lilly,  you're  not  yourself.  I'm  sure  }rou  don't 
feel  well.  Baby,  you  mustn't  be  bashful  with  your 
own  mother." 

"Please,  please  don't  ask  me  that  again  in — in 
that  voice.  You  know  I  always  feel  well." 

"We're  both  married  women  now,  Lilly.  If — if 
there's  anything  you  want  to  say — " 

"No."  " 

"I  always  say,  a  single  woman  doesn't  know  she's 
on  earth.  Isn't  it  so,  Lilly?" 

Suddenly  Lilly  shot  her  hand  out  to  her  mother's 
arm,  her  fingers  digging  into  the  flesh. 

"You  should  have  told  me  something  —  be 
forehand!" 

"I'd  have  cut  out  my  tongue  sooner.  What  kind 
of  a  mother  do  you  think  I  am?  Shame!" 

"It's  wicked  to  rear  a  girl  with  no  conception  of 
life." 

"You're  no  greener  than  I  was.    That's  what  a 
man  wants  in  the  girl  he  marries.    Innocence." 
.,    "Ignorance." 

"It  all  comes  naturally  to  a  woman  after  she's 
married,  life  does." 

"I— I  hate  life." 

"Lilly!" 

"I  do!    I  do!    I  do!" 


STAR   DUST  95 

"You  poor  child!"  said  Mrs.  Becker,  stroking  her 
hand,  and  her  voice  pitched  to  a  very  private  key. 
"Life  is  life  and  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"Only  love — some  sort  of  magic  potion  which 
Nature  uses  to  drug  us,  can  make  her  methods  seem 
anything  but  gross — horrible." 

"What's  on  your  mind,  Lilly?  We  don't  need  to 
be  bashful  together  any  more.  We're  married 


women." 


Lilly  rose  then,  moving  toward  the  dresser, 
drawing  the  large  tortoise-shell  pins  from  the 
smooth  coil  of  her  hair. 

"If  you  want  me  to  go  to  the  meat  market  with 
you,  mamma,  I'd  better  be  dressing  before  it  gets 
any  hotter." 

"You're  too  warm,  Lilly.  I'll  go  myself.  You  can 
learn  the  beef  cuts  later." 

' '  I  would  rather  stay  at  home  and  practice  awhile. 
I  haven't  touched  the  piano  since— 

"Tack  up  your  shelf  paper  while  I'm  gone,  Lilly — 
your  cupboards  look  so  bare — and  then  come  over 
to  lunch  with  me  and  we'll  go  to  the  euchre  together. 
It's  your  first  afternoon  at  the  Junior  Matrons  and 
I  want  you  to  look  your  best.  Wear  your  flowered 
dimity." 

"If  you  don't  mind,  mamma,  I  want  to  unpack 
my  music  this  afternoon  and  get  my  books  straight 
ened.  I'd  rather  not  go." 

"The  nerve!  And  that  poor  little  Mrs.  Wempner 
goes  to  extra  trouble  in  your  honor.  I  hear  she's  to 
have  pennies  attached  to  the  tally  cards.  Pretty 
idea,  pennies  for  Penny.  Well,  I'm  not  going  to 
worry  my  life  away!  Work  it  out  your  own  way. 
I'll  send  you  home  a  steak  and  some  quinine  from 
the  drug  store  for  Albert  to  take  to-night." 


96  STAR  DUST 

Presently  Lilly  heard  the  lower  door  slam.  It  came 
.down  across  her  nerves  like  the  descent  of  a  cleaver. 

For  another  hour  she  sat  immovable.  A  light 
storm  had  come  up  with  summer  caprice,  thunder 
without  lightning,  and  a  thin  fall  of  rain  that  hardly 
laid  the  dust.  There  was  a  certain  whiteness  to  the 
gloom,  indicating  the  sun's  readiness  to  pierce  it, 
but  a  breeze  had  sprung  up,  fanning  the  Swiss  cur 
tains  in  against  Lilly's  cheek,  and  across  the  street 
she  could  see  her  mother's  shades  fly  up  and  windows 
open  to  the  refreshment  of  it. 

At  twelve  o'clock  the  telephone  rang.  It  was  her 
husband.  " Yes,  she  was  well.  Pouring  downtown? 
Funny.  Only  a  light  shower  out  there.  No,  the  man 
had  not  brought  the  missing  caster  for  the  bedstead. 
Yes,  six-forty-six,  and  she  would  put  the  steak  on  at 
six-twenty.  Yes,  the  poultry  netting  had  come. 
Fine.  Bathtub  stopper.  Yes." 

For  quite  a  while  after  this  she  sat  in  the  hallway, 
her  hand  on  the  instrument,  in  the  attitude  of 
hanging  up  the  receiver. 

She  did  piddle  among  her  books  then,  a  vagabond 
little  collection  of  them.  Textbooks,  in  many  cases 
her  initials  and  graduating  year  printed  in  lead 
pencil  along  the  edges.  Rolfe's  complete  edition  of 
Shakespeare.  A  large  illustrated  edition  of  Omar 
Khayyam.  Several  gift  volumes  of  English  poets. 
Complete  set  of  small  red  Poes  that  had  come  free 
with  a  two-year  magazine  subscription.  Graduation 
gift  of  Emerson's  essays.  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal. 
Journeys  to  the  Homes  of  Great  Men.  Lucille,  in 
padded  leather.  An  unaccountably  present  Life  of 
Cardinal  Newman.  The  Sweet  Girl  Graduate.  Faust. 
How  to  Interpret  Dreams. 


STAR  DUST  97 

They  occupied  three  shelves  of  the  little  case; 
the  remaining  two  she  filled  in  with  stacks  of  sheet 
music,  laying  aside  ten  picked  selections  marked 
<<R6pertoire"  and  occasionally  sitting  back  on  her 
heels  to  hum  through  the  pages  of  a  score.  Once 
she  carried  a  composition  to  the  piano,  "Who  is 
Sylvia?"  to  be  exact,  singing  it  through  to  her  own 
accompaniment.  Her  voice  lifted  nicely  against  the 
little  square  confines  of  reception  hall,  Lena,  abso 
lutely  wringing  wet  with  suds  and  perspiration, 
poking  her  head  up  from  the  laundry  stairs. 

1  'Oh,  Miss  Lilly,  that's  grand!  Please  sing  it  over 
again." 

She  did,  quickened  in  spite  of  herself.  Her  voice 
had  a  pleasant  plangency,  a  quality  of  more  yet  to 
come  and  as  if  the  wells  of  her  vitality  were  far  from 
drained. 

She  could  hear  from  the  laundry  the  resumed 
thrubbing  and  even  smell  the  hot  suds.  The  after 
noon  reeked  of  Monday.  She  left  off,  finally,  and 
rocked  for  a  time  on  the  cool  porch,  watching  the 
long,  silent  needles  of  rain,  wisps  of  thought  floating 
like  feathers. 

"Who  am  I?  Lilly  Becker.  How  do  I  happen 
to  be  me?  What  if  I  were  Melba  instead?  What  if 
Melba  were  frying  the  sirloin  to-night  and  five 
thousand  people  were  coming  to  hear  me  sing  in 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House?  Albert — husband. 
What  a  queer  word!  Husband.  Love.  Hate. 
Lindsley.  Language.  How  did  language  ever  come 
to  be?  We  feel,  and  then  we  try  to  make  sounds  to 
convey  that  feeling.  What  language  could  ever  con 
vey  the  boiling  inside  of  me?  I  must  be  a  sea,  full 
of  terrible  deep-down  currents  and  smooth  on  top. 
How  does  one  know  whether  or  not  he  is  crazy — 


98  STAR  DUST 

mad?  How  do  I  know  that  I  am  not  really  singing 
to  five  thousand?  Maybe  this  is  the  dream.  Page 
Avenue.  Lena  in  the  laundry.  That  sirloin  steak 
being  delivered  around  the  side  entrance,  by  a  boy 
with  a  gunny  sack  for  an  apron.  Dreams.  Freud. 
Suppressed  desires.  That's  me.  Thousands — thou 
sands  of  them.  Am  I  my  conscious  or  my  uncon 
scious  self?  Can  I  break  through  this — this  dream 
into  reality?  Which  part  of  me  is  here  on  this  front 
porch  and  which  part  is  Marguerite  with  the  pearls 
in  her  hair?  Bed  casters,  they're  real.  And  Albert — 
husband — the  rows  of  days — and  nights — nights  of 
my  marriage.  O  God,  make  it  a  dream!  Make  it 
a  dream!" 

At   six-forty-six   Albert    Penny   came   home    to 
supper. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THERE  was  nothing  consciously  premeditated 
about  the  astonishing  speech  Lilly  made  to  her 
husband  that  evening.  Yet  it  was  as  if  the  words 
had  been  in  burning  rehearsal,  so  scuttling  hot  they 
came  off  her  lips.  There  had  been  a  coolly  quiet 
evening  on  the  front  porch,  a  telephone  from  Flora 
Bankhead,  a  little  run-in  visit  from  her  parents,  and 
now  at  ten  o'clock  her  husband,  shirt-sleeved  and 
before  the  mirror,  tugging  to  unbutton  his  collar. 

She  did  not  want  that  collar  off.  It  brought, 
rawly,  a  sense  of  his  possession  of  her.  She  sat  fully 
dressed,  in  her  chair  beside  the  window,  the  black 
irises  almost  crowding  out  the  gray  in  her  eyes,  her 
hands  tightening  and  tightening  against  that  removal 
of  collar.  Finally  one  half  of  it  flew  open,  and  on 
that  tremendous  trifle  Lilly  spoke. 

"Albert." 

"Yes?" 

"Let  me  go!" 

"Huh?" 

"It's  wrong.  I've  made  a  mistake.  I  don't  want 
to  be  married." 

For  a  full  second  he  held  that  pose  at  his  collar 
button,  his  entire  being  seeming  to  suspend  a  beat. 

"What  say?"  not  exactly  doubting,  but  wanting 
to  corroborate  his  senses. 

She  was  amazed  at  her  ability  to  reply. 

"I  said  I  have  made  a  terrible  mistake.  I  can't 
stand  being  married  to  you." 


ioo  STAR  DUST 

He  came  toward  her  with  the  open  side  of  his 
collar  jerking  like  an  old  door  on  its  hinges. 

"Now  lookahere,"  he  said,  rather  roughly  for  him; 
"it's  all  right  for  a  woman  to  have  her  whims  once 
in  a  while,  but  there  are  limits.  I've  been  as  con 
siderate  with  you  as  I  know  how  to  be.  A  darn  sight 
more  than  many  a  man  with  his  woman." 

"I'm  not  that!"  she  cried,  springing  to  her  feet. 

"What?" 

"That!    Your—that!" 

"Call  it  what  you  want,"  he  said,  "all  I  know  is 
that  you're  my  wife  and  I  married  you  to  settle  down 
to  a  decent,  self-respecting  home  life  and  that  a 
sensible  woman  leaves  her  whims  behind  her." 

She  stood  with  her  hands  to  the  beat  of  her  throat, 
looking  at  him  as  if  he  had  hunted  her  into  her 
corner,  which  he  had  not. 

"Let  me  go,"  she  said. 

He  seemed  trying  to  gain  control  of  his  large,  loose 
hands,  clenching  and  unclenching  them. 

"Good  God!"  he  said.     "What  say?" 

"It's  no  use!  I've  tried.  I'm  wrong.  Something 
in  me  is  stronger  than  you  or  mamma  or  papa  or — or 
environment.  All  my  life  I've  been  fighting  against 
just — just — this.  And  now  I've  let  it  trap  me." 

"Darn  funny  time  to  be  finding  it  out." 

"That's  the  terrible  part!  To  think  it  took  this 
— marriage — to  awaken  me  to  a  meaning  of  myself." 

"Bah!  Your  meaning  to  yourself  is  no  better  than 
any  other  woman's." 

"A  month  ago  it  would  have  been  so  simple — to 
have  had  the  courage — then.  To  have  realized  then ! 
Why — why  can  life  be  like  that?" 

"Like  what?' 

"You  remember  the  night  coming  home  from  the 


STAR  DUST  ioi 

Highlands?    I  tried  to  tell  you.    Something  in  me 
was  rebelling.     Ask  mamma;  papa.     They  knew! 
That's  been  my  great  trouble.    My  desires  for  my 
self  were  never  strong  enough  to  combat  their  desires    • 
for  me.     They've  always  placed  me   under   such 
ghastly  obligation  for  their  having  brought  me  into 
the  world.     Their  obligation  is  to  me,  for  having     / 
brought  me  here,  the  accident  of  their  desires!    But  ^ 
I  let  the  molasses  lake  of  family  sentiment — suck —     / 
me  in.     If  only  I  had  fought  harder!    It  took  this  i/ 
trap — marriage!    All  of  a  sudden  I'm  awake!    Don't 
try  to  keep  me,  Albert.    I  haven't  known  until  this 
minute  that  my  mind  is  made  up.    So  made  up  that 
it  frightens  me  even  more  than  you.    I'd  rather  be 
on  my  own  in  a  garret,  Albert!    It's  kinder  to  tell 
you.    We  mustn't  get  into  this  thing  deeper.    Noth 
ing  can  change  me.    Don't  try/' 

She  put  up  her  hands  as  if  tc)  ward  off  sorrie  sort 
of  blow,  but  in  her  heart  not  afraid, -arid  "he  wanted 
to  be  afraid  of  him.  He  did  whir!  a  chair  toward  Her 
by  the  back,  but  sat  down,  jerking  her  into  one  op 
posite,  facing  her  so  that  their  knees  touched,  and 
she  could  see  the  spots  on  his  temples  that  responded 
so  to  beefsteak,  throbbing.  Her  terror  rose  a  little 
to  the  volume  of  his  silence.  His  head  was  so  square. 
She  wanted  him  to  rage  and  she  to  hurl  herself 
against  his  storm.  Her  whole  being  wanted  a 
lashing.  She  could  pinch  herself  to  the  capacity  of 
her  strength  without  wincing. 

But  on  the  contrary,  his  voice,  when  it  came, 
was  muted. 

"Lilly,"  he  said,  "you're  sick.  You're  affected 
with  the  heat."  His  look  of  utter  daze  irritated  her. 

"Sick!  You  mean  I  was  sick  before!  I'm  well 
now." 


io2  STAR  DUST 

"You're  either  sick  or  crazy!" 

"I'm  trapped.  I  was  born  trapped,  but  now  I 
tell  you  I'm  free!  Something  up  here  in  my  brain — 
down  here  in  my  heart — has  set  me  free!  You  can't 
keep  me.  No  one  can.  I  want  out!" 

"In  God's  name,  what  are  you  driving  at?" 

"You  wouldn't  understand.  Love  might  have 
made  you — this — possible,  but  it  didn't  come.  It 
didn't  come,  Albert." 

He  reached  for  his  coat  to  plunge  into  it. 

"I'm  going  across  for  your  mother  and  father. 
I'm  afraid  of  you.  There  is  something  behind  all 
this.  One  of  us  is  crazy !" 

"No,  no,  Albert.  Please,  not  them.  I'll  run  out 
of  the  house  if  they  come.  They've  defeated  me  so 
often.  That  terrible  wall  they  erect — out  of  flesh 
that  bleeds  every  time  I  try  to  climb  it.  They've 
killed  me  with  the  selfishness  of  their  love,  those  two. 
They  put  me  body  and  scul  into  Chinese  shoes  the 
day  I  was  born.  I've  never  ceased  paying  up  for 
being  their  child.  Suppose  they  did  sacrifice  for  me 
— clothe  me — feed  me — what  does  parenthood  mean 
but  that?  Don't  you  dare  to  call  them  over!  Don't 
you  dare!" 

"In  God's  name,  then,  what!" 

"Just  let  me  go,  Albert — quietly." 

"Where?" 

She  went  toward  him,  her  fine  white  throat  pal 
pitating  as  if  her  heart  were  beating  up  in  it,  some 
thing  even  wheedling  in  her  voice. 

"I've  thought  it  all  out,  Albert.  These  unbearable 
days  since — this.  I'll  go  quietly;  I'll  take  the  blame. 
In  these  cases  where  a  woman  leaves  it  becomes 
desertion — " 

"If  you're  talking  divorce,  I'll  see  you  burn  like 


STAR  DUST  103 

brimstone  before  I'll  sacrifice  my  respectability  in 
this  community  before  your  damn  whims." 

She  quivered,  and  it  was  a  full  second  before  she 
was  able  to  continue. 

"I  know,  Albert,  to  you  it  sounds — worse,  prob 
ably,  than  it  is.  But  think  how  much  worse,  how 
degrading  it  would  be  for  me  to  stay  here — in  your 
house — hating.  I'll  make  it  so  easy.  It's  done  every 
day,  only  we  don't  happen  to  hear  of  it.  That's  what 
makes  our  kind  the  marrow  of  society.  We're  too 
immorally  respectable  to  live  honestly.  We  build  a 
shell  of  conventionality  over  the  surface  of  things 
and  rot  underneath.  Nature  doesn't  care  how  she 
uses  us.  It's  the  next  generation  concerns  her.  She 
has  to  drug  us  or  we  couldn't  endure.  We're  drugged 
on  respectability.  On  a  few  of  us  the  drug  won't 
react.  I'm  one.  Let  me  go,  Albert.  To  Chicago. 
I  was  there  once  with  mamma  and  papa  to  the  Rope 
and  Hemp  Manufacturers'  Convention.  Or,  better 
still,  New  York.  That's  the  field  for  my  kind  of 
work.  Many  a  girl  with  less  voice  than  I  has  gotten 
on  there.  Albert,  won't  you  let  me  go?" 

He  was  like  nothing  so  much  as  a  cornered  bull, 
trying  to  bash  his  bewildered  head  through  the  im 
penetrable  wall  of  things.  Little  red  shreds  had  come 
out  in  the  white  of  his  eyes ;  he  was  sweating  coarsely 
and  feeling  the  corners  of  his  mouth  with  his  tongue. 

"You  won't  ruin  my  name — you  won't  ruin  my 


name." 


'Til  take  the  blame.  I'll  love  taking  it.  You'll 
have  a  clean  case  of  desertion — " 

Suddenly  he  took  a  step  toward  her  with  the  threat 
of  a  roar  in  his  voice,  and  again  she  found  relief  in 
the  rising  velocity  of  his  anger  and  practically 
thrust  herself  in  the  hope  of  a  blow. 


io4  STAR  DUST 

4 'What* are  you  that  I  am  married  to,"  he  cried, 
" a  she-devil?  What  have  I  got  to  do?  Treat  you 
like  one?  Huh?  Huh?" 

He  stopped  just  short  of  her,  the  upper  half  of  his 
body  thrust  backward  from  restraining  his  impulse 
to  lunge,  his  face  distorted  and  quivering  down  at 
her. 

"Be  careful,"  he  said.  "By  God!  be  careful  when 
I  get  my  blood  up.  The  woman  don't  live  that  can 
touch  my  respectability.  If  you  go,  you  go  without 
a  divorce.  You're  trying  to  harm  me — ruin  my  life 
— that's  what  you  are.  Ruin  my  life."  And  sud 
denly,  before  the  impulse  to  strike  had  traveled 
down  his  tightening  arm,  collapsed  weakly,  his 
entire  body  retched  by  the  dry  sobs  that  men  weep. 
He  could  so  readily  arouse  her  aversion,  that  even 
now,  with  a  quick  pity  for  him  stinging  her  eyeballs, 
she  could  regard  him  dispassionately,  a  certain 
disgust  for  him  uppermost. 

He  turned  toward  her  finally  with  the  look  of  a 
stricken  St.  Bernard  dog,  his  lower  lids  salt-bitten 
and  showing  half  moons  of  red  flesh. 

"What  is  it,  Lilly?  What  have  I  failed  in?  For 
God's  sake  tell  me  and  I'll  make  it  right." 

"That's  the  terrible  part,  Albert.  You  haven't 
failed.  You're  you.  It's  something  neither  of  us 
can  control  any  more  than  we  can  control  the  color 
of  our  eyes.  It's  as  if  I  were  a — a  problem  in  chemis 
try  that  had  reacted  differently  than  was  expected 
and  blew  off  the  top  of  things." 

"Bah!  the  trouble  with  you  women  to-day  is  that 
you've  got  an  itch  that  you  don't  know  how  to 
scratch.  Well,  it's  high  time  for  you  to  learn  a  way 
to  scratch  yours  by  settling  down  like  a  respectable 
married  woman  has  to."  His  voice  rising  and  his 


STAR  DUST  105 

wrongs  red  before  him:  "I  wish  to  God  I'd  never 
laid  eyes  on  you.  I  thought  you  were  more  sensible 
than  most  and  I  find  you  a  crazy  woman/' 

"Then,  Albert,  you  don't  want  a  crazy  woman 
for  your  wife!" 

"Ah  no,  you  don't!  No,  you  don't!  I've  worked 
like  a  dog  to  get  where  I  am.  I'm  a  respected 
member  of  this  community  and  I  intend  to  stay  one. 
No  woman  gets  a  divorce  out  of  me  unless  over  my 
dead  body.  I'm  a  leader  of  a  Bible  class  and  an 
officer  in  my  lodge.  I  wore  a  plume  and  gold  braid 
at  the  funeral  of  the  mayor  of  this  town.  I'm  first- 
assistant  buyer  and  I  propose  to  become  general 
manager.  I'm  a  respectable  citizen  trying  to  settle 
down  to  a  respectable  home,  and,  by  God !  no  woman 
tomfoolery  is  going  to  bamboozle  me  out  of  it." 

She  sat  with  her  eyes  closed,  tears  seeping  through 
them,  and  her  fist  beating  softly  into  her  palm. 

"Oh,  Albert — Albert — how*can  I  make  you  under 
stand?  My  brain  is  bursting — " 

"Lilly,"  he  interrupted,  explosively  reaching  out 
and  closing  over  her  wrist,  and  sudden  perception 
lifting  his  voice,  "I  know!  You — you're  not  well! 
You're  ailing.  Women  aren't — aren't  always  quite 
themselves — at  times.  You —  Lilly — could  it  be — " 

"No!  No!  No!  I'll  go  mad  if  you,  too,  begin 
to  insinuate — that!  I'm  myself,  I  tell  you.  Never 
more  so  in  my  life." 

He  regarded  her  through  frank  and  even  tender 
tears,  his  voice  humoring  her. 

"Of  course,  you're  high  strung,  Lilly,  and  a  high- 
strung  woman  is  like  a  high-strung  horse,  has  to  be 
handled  lightly.  Don't  exert  yourself.  If — if  I'm 
embarrassing  to  you — talk  to  mother.  These  are  the 
times  a  girl  needs  her  mother.  You  go  ahead  and 


io6  STAR  DUST 

pick  on  me  to  your  heart's  content.  I — I'm  a  pretty 
slow  kind  of  fellow  about  some  things.  Never  been 
around  women  enough.  Come,  it's  ten-thirty-six. 
You  need  all  the  sleep  you  can  get.  Come,  Lilly. 
Why— I— I've  been  thick-headed— that's  all." 
,  She  suffered  him  to  kiss  her  on  the  cheek  as  she 
turned  her  face  from  him. 

"Have  it  your  own  way,"  she  said,  limp  with  a 
sudden  sense  of  futility  and  as  if  all  the  reflex  resil 
iency  had  oozed  out  of  her. 

"We're  all  right  together,  Lilly.  Just  don't  you 
worry  your  head.  We'll  get  adjusted  in  no  time. 
You  and — and  mother  talk  things  over  to-morrow. 
I've  been  a  thick-headed  old  fool.  Pshaw!  I — 
Pshaw!" 

She  moved  to  the  dresser,  removing  pins  until  her 
hair  fell  shiningly  all  over  her,  brushing  through  its 
thick  fluff  and  weaving  it  into  two  heavy  braids 
over  her  shoulders.  He  laid  hesitant  and  rather 
clumsy  hands  to  its  thickness. 

"Fine  head  of  hair." 

She  jumped  back  as  if  a  pain  had  stabbed  her. 

"Don't  forget,  Albert,  to  lock  the  downstairs 
windows." 

He  was  full  of  new  comprehensions. 

"I  understand.  Take  your  time  to  undress,  Lilly. 
I'll  be  about  fifteen  minutes  locking  up,  and  I  want 
to  attach  some  new  safety  locks  I  brought  with  me. 
Everything  all  right?" 

"Yes." 

"You  don't  need  to  keep  the  light  burning." 

"I  won't." 

He  opened  his^lips  to  say  something,  but,  instead, 
turned  and  went  out,  the  closed  half  of  his  collar 
drenched  in  perspiration. 


STAR  DUST  107 

When  he  returned,  after  a  generous  fifteen  minutes, 
the  room  was  in  darkness  except  for  a  thin  veil  of 
whiteness  from  the  arc  light  in  the  street.  Between 
the  sweetly  new  sheets  the  long,  supple  mound  of 
Lilly  lay  along  the  bed,  her  bare  arms  close  to  her 
body. 

Her  breathing  was  sufficiently  deep  to  simulate 
sleep.  He  undressed  in  the  darkness  and  the  silence. 

Half  the  night  through  he  tossed,  keeping  carefully 
to  the  bed  edge,  and  often  she  heard  him  sigh  out 
and  was  conscious  that  he  mopped  continually  at 
the  back  of  his  hands.  Once  he  whispered  her  name. 

"Lilly— awake?" 

She  deepened  her  breathing. 

About  four  o'clock  he  dozed  off,  swooning  deeply 
into  sleep,  his  lips  opening  and  a  slight  snore  coming. 

She  lay  with  her  eyes  open  to  the  darkness,  letting 
it  lave  over  her  as  if  it  were  water  and  she  had 
drowned  in  it  with  her  gaze  wide. 

She  felt  bathed  in  a  colorless  fluid  of  unreality. 
Those  Swiss  window  curtains!  To  what  era  of  her 
consciousness  did  their  purchase  belong?  She  and 
her  mother  had  shopped  them  at  Gentle's.  They 
hung  now  lightly  against  the  darkness.  The  blond 
girl  who  had  sold  them  to  her  must  be  sleeping  now, 
too,  in  this  same  curious  pool  of  unreality.  She  lay 
sunk  in  a  strange  pause.  Once  she  propped  herself 
on  an  elbow,  gazing  across  the  street  to  the  blank 
front  of  her  parents'  house.  They  were  sleeping 
behind  that  middle  upper  window,  their  clothing 
folded  across  chairs,  as  if  waiting.  How  eagerly  they 
would  greet  their  new  day  of  small  -  duties,  small 
pleasures,  and  small  emotions.  What  gave  them 
the  courage  to  meet  the  years  of  days  cut  off  one 

identical  pattern,  like  a  whole  regiment  of  paper 
8 


io8  STAR  DUST 

dolls  cut  from  a  folded  newspaper?  She  began  to 
count.  Uncle  Buck,  five  hundred.  Grandma  Ploag, 
one  hundred.  Mamma  and  papa,  one  hundred  and 
fifty.  Seven  hundred  and  fifty  in  the  bank  in  her 
name !  Her  own  little  checking  account.  The  tan- 
bound  check  book.  The  new  tan  valise,  mono- 
grammed,  L.  B.  P.  The  stack  of  music  marked 
"R6pertoire."  New  York!  She  fell  to  trembling, 
forcing  herself  into  rigidity  when  the  figure  beside 
her  stirred.  She  was  burning  with  fever  and  wanted 
to  plunge  from  the  cool  sheets.  She  could  have  run 
a  mile — two. 

Instead,  she  lay  the  long  night  through,  her  mind 
a  loom  weaving  a  tapestry  of  her  plan  of  action,  and 
dawn  came  up  pink,  hot,  and  cloudless. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AT  seven  o'clock  her  husband  awakened  with  an 
ejaculation  that  landed  him  sitting  on  the  bed 
edge.  She  lay  with  her  eyes  closed,  wanting  not  to 
blink.  He  dressed  silently,  but  she  could  hear  him 
tiptoeing  about,  and  finally,,  lay  with  her  hands 
clenched  against  the  gargling  noises  that  came 
through  the  closed  door  of  the  bathroom.  At  last 
she  was  conscious  that,  fully  dressed,  he  was  standing 
beside  her,  looking  down.  She  could  tell  by  the 
aroma  of  mouth  wash. 

"Lilly?"  he  said,  in  a  coarse  whisper. 

She  continued  to  simulate  sleep. 

"Lilly!" 

She  did  not  employ  the  deception  of  a  start,  but 
opened  her  eyes  quietly  to  meet  his. 

"Lazy!"  he  said.  "It  is  twenty-six  minutes  past 
seven." 

"So  late?"  she  said,  twisting  into  a  long,  luxurious 
yawn.  He  kissed  her  directly  on  that  yawn  between 
the  open  lips. 

"You  stay  in  bed  this  morning.    Rest  up." 

"I  think  I  will,  Albert,  if  you  don't  mind." 

"You  turn  right  over  and  have  your  nap  out. 
I'll  be  home  at  six-forty-six." 

"Good-by,  Albert,"  she  said  into  the  crotch  of  her 
elbow. 

He  kissed  her  again  on  the  ear  lobe  and  the  nape 
of  her  neck. 

"Good-by,  Lilly,  and  if  I  were  you  I'd  have  a  little 


no  STAR  DUST 

talk  with  mother  if  I  found  myself  not  feeling  just 
right.  I'm  sending  Joe  up  with  a  pair  of  granite 
scrub  buckets  and  that  stopper  for  the  bathtub. 
All  right?" 

"Yes." 

After  a  while  she  could  hear  him  below,  the  tink 
of  breakfast  cutlery  and  the  little  passings  in  and  out 
of  Lena  through  the  swinging  pantry  door.  Then 
the  front  door  closed  gently,  and  on  its  click  she 
swung  herself  lightly  out  of  bed,  standing  bare 
footed  behind  the  Swiss  curtains  to  watch  the  square- 
shouldered  figure  swing  across  the  street  toward  the 
Page  Avenue  car.  Her  energy  to  be  up  and  doing  sud 
denly  unstoppered,  she  turned  back  to  the  room,  jerk 
ing  out  a  dresser  drawer  until  it  flew  out  to  the  floor. 

At  nine  o'clock  she  was  still  in  her  nightdress, 
sloughing  about  in  an  engagement  gift  of  little  blue 
knitted  bedroom  slippers.  There  were  the  new  valise 
and  an  old  dress-suitcase  tightly  packed  and  shoved 
beneath  the  bed,  and  over  a  chair  a  tan-linen  suit 
inserted  with  strips  of  large-holed  embroidery  that 
had  been  dyed  in  coffee  by  Katy  Stutz.  It  had 
originally  been  designed  as  a  traveling  suit  for  a 
honeymoon  trip  to  Excelsior  Springs  until  that 
project  had  been  decided  against  in  favor  of  imme 
diate  possession  of  the  little  house. 

"Put  that  extra  money  into  your  furniture,"  Mrs. 
Becker  had  advised,  to  which  Albert  had  been  highly 
amenable. 

There  was  a  large  piece  de  resistance  of  a  hat,  too, 
floppy  of  brim  and  borne  down  at  one  spot  by 
an  enormous  flat  satin  rose.  Lilly  had  rebelled 
against  its  cart-wheel  proportions,  but  in  the  end 
her  mother's  selection  prevailed. 

She  dressed  hurriedly,   emerging  from  her  bath 


STAR  DUST  in 

with  her  hair  wet  at  the  edges,  but  combing  back 
easily  into  its  smoothness. 

Her  nervousness  conveyed  itself  to  her  mostly 
through  her  breathing;  it  was  short  and  very  fast, 
but  she  was  as  cool  of  the  flesh  as  the  fresh  linen  she 
donned.  That  was  part  of  the  clean  young  wonder 
of  her.  Her  vitality  flowed  and  showered  back  upon 
itself,  like  the  ornamental  waters  of  a  fountain. 
She  awoke  like  a  rose  with  the  dew  on.  Even  Albert 
Penny,  rubbing  the  grit  out  of  his  eyes,  had  marveled 
at  the  matinal  bloom  of  her. 

She  ran  in  her  movements,  closing  drawers  and 
doors  after  her  to  keep  down  her  rising  sense  of  con 
fusion,  pinning  where  fingers  could  not  wait  to  fit 
hook  to  eye.  There  were  twenty-eight  dollars  in 
her  little  brown-leather  purse  and  a  check  for  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  payable  to  "self,"  in  a 
little  chamois  bag  around  her  neck. 

The  pretty  solitaire  engagement  ring,  a  little 
aquamarine  breastpin,  gift  of  the  groom,  a  gold 
band  bracelet,  and  after  some  hesitation  her  wedding 
ring,  she  placed  in  an  envelope  in  the  now  empty  top 
dresser  drawer,  scribbling  across  it,  "Valuable." 
She  pried  it  open  again  after  sealing,  to  drop  in  a  tiny 
gold  chain  with  a  pearl-and-turquoise  drop,  still 
another  gift,  suggested  by  her  mother  to  the  bride 
groom.  Finally,  there  were  the  little  trinkets  of  more 
remote  days  which  she  dropped  into  her  purse.  A 
rolled-gold  link  bracelet  dangling  a  row  of  friendship 
hearts.  Her  class  pin.  A  tiny  reproduction  on  porce 
lain,  like  the  one  burned  into  the  china  plate  in  the 
parlor,  of  her  parents,  cheek  to  cheek.  Regarding  it, 
her  throat  tightened  and  she  sat  down  suddenly. 

"O  God!"  she  said,  half  audibly,   "what  am  I 
doing?"    But  on  the  second  she  cocked  her  head  to 


ii2  STAR  DUST 

a  passer-by  and  finally  leaned  out  to  hail  in  a  neigh 
borhood  man  of  all  work,  paying  him  a  dollar  and 
car  fare  to  carry  her  bags  down  to  the  new  Union 
Station  and  check  them.  Seeing  them  lugged  out  of 
the  house  was  another  moment  when  it  seemed  to  her 
that  she  must  faint  .'of  the  crowding  around  her  heart. 

Lena  she  dispatched  to  the  grocer's  on  the  homely 
errand  of  beeswax  for  ironing,  and,  trembling  to 
take  advantage  of  the  interval  of  her  absence,  hur 
ried  into  her  jacket  and  hat,  her  face  deeply  within 
the  wide  brim.  Opposite,  her  mother  was  scrubbing 
an  upper  window  sill,  the  brush  grating  against  the 
silence.  She  waited  behind  the  Swiss  curtains  for 
the  figure  to  withdraw. 

The  wide,  peaceful  morning  filled  with  order  and 
sunshine !  The  pleasant  greeny  light  cast  by  awnings 
into  her  bedroom.  What  devil  dance  was  in  her 
blood?  What  prickly  rash  lay  under  her  being? 
Her  mother  at  that  ordered  scrubbing  of  the  window 
sill!  Her  eyes  swung  the  smaller  orbit  of  the  room. 
The  rumpled  bed.  That  discarded  collar  on  the 
dresser,  the  two  stretched  buttonholes  like  two  tiny 
mouths.  That  collar  .  .  . 

She  caught  up  her  purse  and  ran  downstairs.  Her 
telephone  was  ringing  violently  as  she  hurried  toward 
the  Page  Avenue  car. 

On  the  ride  down  there  occurred  one  of  those  inci 
dents  that  sometimes  leap  out  like  a  long  arm  of 
coincidence  pointing  the  way.  A  classmate  with 
whom  she  had  once  sung  in  the  Girl's  High  School 
Glee  Club,  and  whom  she  had  long  lost  sight  of,  sat 
down  beside  her. 

"Why,  it's  Lilly  Becker!" 

"VeraWohlgemuth!" 

"  Of  all  people !   The  same  pretty  and  stylish  Lilly . " 


STAR  DUST  113 

Remembering  Vera's  readiness  with  the  platitude, 
Lilly  smiled  down  upon  her. 

"And  you,  too,  Vera,  you  look  natural" — but 
the  words  almost  petered  out  on  her  lips.  Much  of 
Vera's  slender  prettiness  was  gone.  She  had  gone 
hippy,  as  the  saying  is,  even  her  face  insidiously 
wider  and  coarser  pored. 

"What  are  you  doing,  Vera?  Have  you  kept  up 
your  music?" 

"Oh  no!    I'm  married!" 

There  was  a  little  click  to  the  finish  of  that  speech 
that  seemed  automatically  to  lock  against  the 
intrusion  of  old  dreams. 

"A  ten-months-old  daughter  furnishes  me  all  the 
music  I  have  time  for.  Didn't  I  read  where  you  got 
married,  Lilly?" 

"Yes.  You  had  such  a  pretty  touch  on  the  piano, 
Vera." 

"Why,  I  don't  believe  I've  opened  the  piano  in 
six  months!  Marriage  knocks  it  out  of  you  pretty 
quick,  don't  it?  And,  say,  wait  until  the  babies 
begin  to  come.  I  said  to  him  last  night,  'Ed,  why 
is  marriage  like  quicksands  ? '  He's  no  good  at  conun 
drums.  'Because  it  sucks  you  down,'  I  said,  and  he 
didn't  even  see  the  point.  But  it's  a  fact,  isn't  it? 
Mine  is  city  salesman  for  the  Mound  City  Shoe 
Company.  What's  yours?" 

"With  Slocum-Hines." 

"Lucille  Wright  is  married.  And  remember  Edna 
Ponscarme  ?  Twins.  Nine  months  to  a  day.  May 
be  she  wasn't  in  a  hurry !  And  Stella  Loire,  the  class 
beauty?  She  wheels  her  past  our  house  on  her  way 
to  market  every  morning.  More  like  the  class  dishrag 
now.  Well,  well!  it  does  seem  funny.  Lilly  Becker 
married  and  settled  down  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  we 


ii4  STAR  DUST 

had  you  down  in  the  class  prophecy  for  a  famous 
opera  singer.  Well,  well!" 

At  Eighteenth  Street  Lilly  left  the  car,  transferring 
for  Union  Station.  A  sudden  exultation  was  racing 
through  her.  She  sat  well  forward  on  her  seat,  as 
if  that  could  quicken  transit. 

Union  Station,  one  of  the  first  of  those  dividend- 
built  and  dividend-building  terminals  that  were  to 
spring  up  quickly  and  palatially  the  country  over, 
rose  with  a  peculiarly  American  trick  out  of  one  of 
the  most  squalid  sections  of  the  city.  Fifteen  rail 
roads  threaded  into  it,  a  gaseous  shed  de  luxe,  picking 
up  St.  Louis  like  a  gigantic  bead  upon  the  necklace  of 
commerce. 

The  coughing  of  steam  up  against  a  glass  roof 
threw  off  repetitions  of  self.  The  boom  of  a  train 
announcer's  voice  rang  out,  the  echoes  fitting  smaller 
and  smaller  into  one  another  like  a  collapsible  drink 
ing  cup.  A  hither  and  thither !  A  bustle  that  caught 
Lilly  up  into  it.  She  was  immediately  drunk  with 
the  moment  and  train  smoke.  Life  was  a  gigantic 
drum,  beating. 

The  clerk  at  the  Terminal  Hotel,  Mrs.  Kemble's 
brother-in-law,  in  fact,  cashed  her  check  for  her, 
without  question,  but  a  sort  of  unspoken  askance, 
sending  it  across  the  street,  with  his  additional  in 
dorsement,  to  a  bank.  There  were  six  one-hundred- 
dollar  bills,  two  fifties,  and  five  tens.  She  folded  their 
considerable  bulk  into  the  bag  around  her  neck. 

True  to  direction,  the  checks  for  her  bags  had  been 
left  at  the  Information  Desk  in  an  addressed  en 
velope.  A  porter  scurried  for  them. 

Backed  by  the  precedent  of  the  trip  to  Buffalo, 
Niagara  Falls,  and  Chicago,  she  bought  her  ticket, 
and  then,  rather  more  reluctantly  and  against  her 


STAR  DUST  115 

sense  of  thrift,  a  berth,  which  already  necessitated 
a  foray  into  the  little  chamois  bag. 

Last,  she  dropped  an  already  stamped  and  ad 
dressed  envelope  into  the  station  mail  box,  her  heart 
seeming  to  swoon  to  her  feet  as  she  did  so.  It  con 
tained  a  half -hundredth  version  of  a  week-old  letter 
finally  reduced  to : 

MY  DEAREST  PARENTS, — When  you  receive  this  I  will  be  on 
my  way.  I  won't  try  to  explain  my  action  except  that  now  I 
see  plainly  my  entire  life  has  been  directed  toward  this  moment. 

Had  I  found  this  courage  two  months  ago  a  great  deal  of 
suffering  might  have  been  spared  one  person,  at  least.  I  cannot 
say  enough  for  Albert's  patient  struggle  to  make  possible  the 
impossible,  or  for  you,  my  dear  parents,  for  whom  my  love  is 
as  great  as  my  rebellion. 

I  am  not  leaving  an  address.  That  would  be  useless.  My 
decision  is  unalterable.  It  is  futile  to  come  after  or  try  to  find 
me.  In  a  large  city  I  will  immediately  become  a  needle  in  a 
haystack  and  that  is  what  I  want  and  need  for  my  work.  Do 
not  worry.  You  know  very  well  I  can  take  excellent  care  of 
myself,  and  in  case  of  unforeseen  accident  I  will  always  be  iden 
tified  by  your  name  and  address  on  me.  So  by  my  very  silence 
you  are  to  know  I  am  well  and  happy.  Some  day,  when  success 
has  justified  this  seemingly  rash  step,  who  knows  what  happy 
reunion  may  be  in  store  for  us? 

Take  Albert  into  your  home.  He  will  be  a  better  son  to  you 
than  I  have  been  a  daughter.  God  bless  you  all.  LILLY. 

At  ten-five  the  B.  &  0.  Limited,  for  New  York, 
pulled  out.  In  a  Pullman,  her  bags  on  the  seat  op 
posite  and  her  hands  locked  so  that  her  finger  nails 
bit  in,  sat  Lilly,  gazing  out  over  the  moving  land 
scape  of  dirty,  uneven  fringe  of  city.  Crossing  Eads 
Bridge,  the  higher  and  lighter  rumble  of  the  train, 
induced  by  steel  over  water,  was  like  thin  soprano 
laughter  with  ice  in  it. 

She  was  suddenly  terrifyingly  conscious  of  an  impulse 
to  join  in  that  laughter — to  laugh  and  to  laugh. 


CHAPTER  XV 

T^HERE  is  a  sense  of  detachment  from  this  old 
•*•  planet  of  ours  goes  with  travel,  that  is  not 
unlike  that  instant  when  the  pole  vaulter's  feet  are 
farthest  off  ground.  It  seemed  to  Lilly,  after  a 
while,  that  both  her  starting  point  and  her  destina 
tion  had  fallen  away.  She  hung  in  abeyance.  She 
was  the  unanchored  streak  of  a  rocket  through  space. 

Time  was  dropping  away  from  her  with  a  sense  of 
the  same  steep  declivity  that  could  awaken  her  out 
of  a  doze  to  a  sense  of  falling.  She  was  rolling 
through  the  pleasant  monotony  of  Indiana,  against 
the  light  slant  of  a  morning  suddenly  turned  rainy. 
Quick  diagonal  streaks  flecked  the  pane  and  she 
could  see  the  drops  spat  down  into  a  thick  white- 
plush  road,  clipping  it  of  nap. 

The  sleeper  was  quite  empty  save  for  a  medley  of 
drummers'  talk  and  the  rattle  of  chips  from  the 
smoking  room  and  an  old  man  in  a  skull  cap  who 
dozed  incessantly.  Even  the  porter  dozed.  She  sat 
the  day  through  without  responding  to  calls  for 
meals,  the  rain  falling  steadily  now  like  a  curtain. 
At  five  o'clock  the  lamps  were  already  burning  and 
a  rash  of  little  lights  began  to  break  out  over  the 
landscape. 

''Some  day,"  she  mused,  "I'll  look  back  upon  all 
this  and  laugh.  I'll  tell  it  in  a  newspaper  interview. 
Lillian  Ploag.  No,  Luella  Ploag.  Ploag.  No-o, 
Luella— Luella  Parlow!  Not  bad.  Luella  Parlow!" 


STAR  DUST  117 

She  asked  a  passing  porter  the  time. 
"Six-forty-six!" 

She  slept  fitfully,  awakening  with  little  exclama 
tions,  and  once  came  so  suddenly  out  of  a  doze  that 
she  awoke  sitting  bolt  upright,  bumping  her  head 
against  the  top  of  the  berth.  Cup  her  hands  as  she 
would  against  the  window  pane,  she  could  not  see 
out,  but  it  seemed  to  her  that  dawn  must  be  im 
minent.  She  felt  for  her  little  watch,  leaning  to 
the  streak  of  light  the  curtains  let  in.  Ten-five! 
Not  yet  midnight.  She  lay  back  on  the  gritty  bed, 
trembling. 

At  six  o'clock  there  were  still  stars,  but  a  coral 
tremor  was  against  the  sky  line  and  clouds  coming 
up  furiously.  Suddenly  she  realized  that  the  clouds 
were  mountains  and  that  the  flat  territory  had  flowed 
through  the  night  into  Pennsylvania  mountains  that 
were  like  plunging  waves,  and  with  the  changed 
physiognomy,  her  mood  quickened.  She  would  not 
wait  for  the  sun,  dressing  in  her  berth. 

At  eight  o'clock,  and  for  only  the  third  time  in  her 
life,  she  breakfasted  in  a  dining  car.  It  was  well 
crowded,  the  old  man  in  the  skull  cap  across  the 
aisle  from  her  gouging  out  an  orange.  She  ordered 
with  a  sense  of  novelty  and  thrift,  passing  on  from 
grilled  spring  chicken,  bar-le-duc,  and  honey-dew 
melon  to  eggs  and  bacon.  A  drummer  with  a  gold- 
mounted  elk's  tooth  dangling  from  his  chain  ogled 
her,  so  she  sat  very  prim  of  back,  gazing  out  over 
flying  villages  that  were  like  white-pine  toys  cut  in 
the  cisalpine  Alps  and  invitingly  more  clipped  and 
groomed  than  the  straggling  Indiana  towns  of  yes 
terday.  She  was  cruelly  conscious  of  self,  and 
throughout  the  meal  kept  the  tail  of  her  glance 


ii8  STAR  DUST 

darting  at  her  surroundings,  dropping  a  piece  of 
toast  once  and  apologizing  to  the  waiter,  continuing 
to  smile  in  an  agony  of  strain  after  the  incident. 
She  ate  slowly,  her  little  finger  at  right  angle  to  her 
movements,  masticating  with  closed  lips,  her  napkin 
constantly  dabbing  up  at  them. 

Finally  the  head  waiter,  who  had  been  hovering, 
to  Lilly's  great  discomfiture,  directly  at  her  shoulder, 
steered  a  young  woman,  with  a  great  deal  of  very 
fuzzy  light-brown  hair  about  her  face,  to  the  empty 
seat  opposite.  She  had  a  certain  air  of  chic,  was 
modishly  dressed,  wore  no  rings  except  a  marriage 
band,  and  long  pink  nails  with  careful  half  moons. 
With  the  ripple  of  a  thrill  over  her,  Lilly  registered  her 
as  "typical  New  Yorker."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she 
was  the  wife  of  a  teacher  of  physics  in  Brooklyn 
Manual  Training  School,  returning  from  a  two  weeks' 
visit  to  her  mother-in-law  in  Indianapolis. 

She  ordered  with  somewhat  of  a  manner,  asking  for 
an  immediate  cup  of  hot  water,  and  to  Lilly  there  was 
something  esoteric  even  in  that.  The  sturdy,  fine 
machine  of  her  own  body  had  the  crass  ability  to 
start  off  the  day  with  bacon  and  eggs.  She  blushed 
for  the  healthiness  of  her  choice. 

A  patter  of  conversation  sprang  up  between  them, 
something  like  this: 

"Would  you  mind  passing  me  the  sugar?" 

"Why,  certainly  not!"  from  an  eager  Lilly. 

"Going  all  the  way  to  New  York?" 

"Yes." 

"Live  there?" 

"No.     Do  you?" 

"Yes,  since  my  marriage." 

"Do  you  like  it?" 

"New  York  is  not  a  point  of  view,   my  dear. 


STAR  DUST  vnc 

It's  a  habit.  Your  system  comes  to  dems-  d  it  just 
as  an  opium  fiend  comes  to  require  so  many  pipe- 
fuls.  You  know  it's  bad  for  you,  but  the  fumes  are 
delicious." 

"What  fumes?" 

"The  fumes  of  the  metropolis,  my  dear.  The 
perfumes  of  wealth.  The  next  best  to  being  Mrs. 
Four  Hundred  herself  is  to  walk  past  her  Fifth 
Avenue  home  and  see  her  step  out  of  her  automobile." 

"I  suppose  so,  if  wealth  is  what  one  craves  most." 

"It  isn't  a  craving  in  New  York;  it's  a  necessity. 
But  to  those  of  us  to  whom  life  is  pretty  much  of  a 
compromise  anyway,  there  is  something  in  mere 
propinquity  to  wealth  that  is  like  smelling  into  a  / 
tumbler  with  its  sides  still  wet  from  some  rare  old 
chartreuse.  It  isn't  filling,  but  it's  heady." 

"That's  exactly  the  way  I  feel  about  life;  it's 
worth  going  after  if  you  only  get  the  aroma.  If  I 
ctxn't  be  Venus,  then  let  me  be  the  star  dust  that  is 
nearest  to  her!" 

It  seemed  to  Lilly  that  she  was  suddenly  talking 
to  her  own  kind.  New  York  spoke  her  language. 

"Fearful  coffee.  I  always  say  the  only  place  out 
side  of  my  own  percolator  I  can  get  a  decent  cup  of 
coffee  is  the  new  Hudson." 

1 '  The  Hudson  ?    Is  that  a  good  hotel  ? " 

c '  Yes,  splendid.    Are  you  ^lone  ? ' ' 

There  occurred  to  Lilly  a  swift  talent  for  the  moment. 

"Certainly,"  she  said,  shaping  her  own  voice  into 
a  petard  against  the  little  clang  of  surprise  in  the 
voice  of  her  vis-d-vis.  "I  always  travel  alone.  I'm 
a  professional." 

"Really?"  her  glance  running  over  the  somewhat 
florid  details  of  the  corn-colored  linen.  "With  that 
fine  chest,  I'll  warrant  you're  a  singer." 


120  STAR  DUST 

"Right." 

"I  wonder  if  you  know  Margaret  Mazarin." 

"Indeed  I  do,  from  hearsay." 

/  "Well,  we  virtually  gave  Margaret  her  start. 
j  Madge  Evans  is  her  real  name.  My  husband  grew 
up  next  door  to  her  in  Indianapolis.  She  practically 
used  to  make  our  apartment  her  home.  One  day 
when  she  was  about  as  close  to  bed  rock  as  a  girl 
could  be,  my  husband  said  to  her:  'Madge,  if  the 
managers  won't  give  you  a  hearing,  why  don't  you 
try  some  of  those  agencies  in  the  Pittman  Building 
in  Longacre  Square?  I  see  all  sorts  of  musical  and 
theatrical  agencies'  signs  on  the  windows.'  Bless  us, 
if  the  very  first  one  to  which  she  applied  didn't 
give  her  the  position  that  indirectly  led  her  straight 
to  the  Metropolitan !  Some  one  connected  with  one 
of  the  biggest  patrons  of  the  opera  heard  her  singing 
down  at  a  little  old  ten-twenty-and-thirty  theater 
and  got  her  an  audience  right  off." 

"Oh,"  cried  Lilly,  her  face  ardent,  "if  only— I 
— someday — " 

"Yes,"  continued  her  companion,  dipping  into 
her  finger  bowl  and  pushing  back,  "Madge  always 
says  it  was  that  tip  from  my  husband,  a  mere  chance 
suggestion,  gave  her  a  start." 

"Wonderful!" 

They  paid,  each  her  check,  leaving  small  woman 
ish  tips  beside  their  saucers. 

"Well,  I  hope  some  day  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  you  sing.  Are  you  in  concert?" 

"Oh  yes,  concert." 

"I  must  watch  for  your  name,"  digging  down  into 
a  reticule  for  a  bit  of  cardboard.  "Mine  is  Towser 
— Mrs.  Seymour  Towser.  What  is  yours?" 

"Mine?      Lilly  Penny,"  she   replied,  her  whole 


125 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THEY  rattled  over  the  cobblestones  until  her  very 
flesh  shivered,  and  she  bit  into  her  tongue  and 
her  hands  bounced  as  they  lay  in  her  lap,  and, 
trying  to  peer  out  of  the  window,  she  bumped  her 
head,  and  finally  sat  back,  forced  to  be  inert  as  she 
bumbled  over  the  deep  narrow  streets  of  lower  Man 
hattan  which  at  night  become  deserted  runways  to 
slaughter,  ghostly  with  the  silent  thunder  of  a 
million  stampeding  feet. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  they  finally  drew  up  at 
the  side  entrance  of  the  hotel  in  a  street  disap 
pointingly  narrow,  but  which  seemed  to  burst,  just 
a  few  feet  beyond,  into  a  wildly  tossed  stream  of 
light,  pedestrians,  and,  above  all,  a  momentum  of 
traffic  that  was  like  the  fast  toss  of  a  mountain 
stream.  The  cab  fare  was  overwhelmingly  large. 
Her  bags  disappeared;  she  followed  them,  imme 
diately  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of  upholstery, 
mosaic  floors  that  seemed  to  slide  from  under  her, 
palms  that  leaned  out  of  corners,  crystal  chandeliers, 
uniforms,  rivulets  of  music.  She  had  dined  upon 
several  occasions  at  the  Planters'  Hotel  in  St.  Louis, 
and  had  once  spent  a  night  at  the  Briggs  House, 
Chicago,  and  the  Hotel  Imperial  at  Niagara  Falls, 
and  had  objected  when  her  father  signed,  "B.  T. 
Becker,  Wife  and  Daughter,"  taking  the  pen  to 
write  out  her  own  name  boldly  under  his,  and  upon 
all  summer  excursions  had  taken  upon  herself  the 
ordering  of  the  family  meals. 


STAR  DUST 

But  the  Hudson  awed  her,  the  very  Carrara  mag- 
.itude  of  the  walls,  the  remote  gold-leaf  ceilings, 
light-studded,  the  talcy  odor  de  luxe.  She  wanted 
to  back  out  of  that  lobby  of  groups  of  well-dressed 
loungers;  to  turn;  to  run.  Instead,  she  wrote 
her  name  on  the  register,  marveling  at  her  steady 
chirography : 

Luella  Parlow,  Dallas 

A  narrow  clerk  scanned  the  bulk  of  her  baggage, 
unhooked  some  keys,  and  called,  "Front."  She  was 
mildly  taken  for  granted  and  her  assurance  stiffened. 

"Bath?" 

' '  What  are  your  rates  ? ' ' 

' '  Three-fifty  and  up. " 

"Yes— bath." 

He  shifted  among  his  keys  and  she  noticed  that 
when  she  returned  the  pen  to  him  his  hand  lingered 
just  too  long.  She  had  a  way  of  lifting  her  eyebrows 
to  express  her  archest  scorn.  The  smile  on  the 
clerk's  face  did  not  die,  but  neither  did  it  widen. 

She  shot  upward  in  an  elevator.  She  padded  her 
way  through  long  hallways  deeply  carpeted  to  eat 
in  footfalls.  It  seemed  to  her  they  must  have 
rounded  a  city  square  of  those  hallways,  door  after 
door  after  door  as  imperturbable  as  eyeless  masks, 
and  yet  which  somehow  seemed  to  look  on. 

"Anything  else,  ma'am?" 

"Nothing."  She  interpreted  his  wait  and  felt  for 
a  ten-cent  piece.  He  shifted  the  key  to  the  room 
inside  of  the  door  and  went  out. 

She  was  alone  in  a  twelfth-story  room  that  en 
hanced  her  aerial  sense  of  light-headedness.  She 
looked  at  the  bed.  Curly  birch  with  a  fine  sense  of 
depth  to  its  whiteness.  There  was  a  glass  top  on  the 


STAR  DUST  125 

dresser,  with  a  lace  scarf  beneath  it  which  appealed 
to  her  sense  of  novelty.  Also  an  extra  light  above  it 
which  she  jerked  on,  peering  at  herself  in  the  mirror. 

There  were  soot  rims  about  her  eyes,  and  when  she 
removed  her  hat  her  hair  was  glued  to  her  brow  in 
its  outline.  But  just  the  same,  the  pollen  that  gave 
to  her  skin  its  velvet iness  was  there.  She  leaned  to 
the  mirror,  baring  her  teeth  to  scan  their  whiteness; 
turned  her  profile  as  if  to  appraise  its  strong,  sure 
cast ;  swelled  her  chest  after  the  manner  of  inhaling 
for  an  octave,  letting  her  hand  ride  on  it.  Then  she 
undressed  slowly,  luxuriating  in  a  deep  hot  bath  that 
rested  her  as  she  lay  back  in  it.  She  even  washed 
her  hair,  wrapping  it  finally  in  one  of  the  thick 
turkish  towels,  and  then  leaned  out  of  her  window 
for  a  while,  her  body  well  over  the  sill,  and  the  air, 
with  a  cool  washed  quality  to  it,  flowing  through  her 
nightdress.  She  looked  down  on  what  she  thought 
must  be  the  bosom  of  Broadway.  Actually  it  was 
Forty-fourth  Street.  An  ocean  of  roofs  billowed 
under  her  gaze. 

She  thought  of  Tuefelsdrock  alone  with  his  stars. 
Or  rather,  wanted  to  think  of  herself  as  thinking  of  him. 

A  telephone  directory  on  the  desk  caught  her  eye. 
For  an  hour  she  pored  over  its  pages,  names  that  had 
blazoned  themselves  incandescently  from  the  pages 
of  musical  reviews  and  magazines  mixed  in  casually 
with  the  clayey  ones  of  mere  persons.  A  thrill  shot 
over  her  with  each  encounter.  The  book  began  to 
exhale  an  odor  of  sanctity. 

It  was  two  o'clock  when  she  turned  off  her  lights, 
just  enough  glow  from  the  hallway  pressing  against 
her  transom  to  reassure  her.  The  sheets  were  fra 
grant  with  cleanliness  and  she  let  her  body  give 
to  the  delicious  sag  of  the  mattress.  The  rumble  of 


126  STAR  DUST 

the  train  was  gone  from  her  ears.  She  felt  washed, 
light,  drowsy;  cast  aside  her  pillow;  wound  her  arm 
up  under  her  head ;  sighed  out  of  deliciousness ;  slept. 

She  awoke  with  a  sense  of  red.  A  flame  of  fear 
shot  through  her,  and  a  first  thought  of  fire,  but 
even  before  she  could  rise  she  saw  it  was  static,  this 
crimson  gash  across  the  blackness,  and  shaped  like  a 
grin. 

She  began  to  tremble,  and  an  unreasoning  fear  of 
the  depth  of  the  darkness  to  take  hold  of  her.  A  sort 
of  paralysis  locked  her,  and,  although  she  wanted  to 
scream,  she  lay  there  drenched  in  terror.  Finally, 
out  of  contempt  for  her  fear,  she  sprang,  landing 
both  feet  on  the  floor. 

A  little  window  in  the  box  of  the  wall  telephone, 
one  of  those  modern  hotel  devices  de  luxe  and  de 
trap,  had  flashed  up  redly,  spelling  out  to  her  dilated 
gaze,  "MAIL  IN  YOUR  BOX."  Regarding  it,  her  relief 
shifted  suddenly  to  terror.  Mail !  Not  even  had  she 
herself  known  what  her  address  might  be!  Her 
mother — father — Albert?  But  how?  The  drummer 
with  the  gold-mounted  elk's  tooth!  The  clerk  and 
that  almost  imperceptible  trail  of  the  hand.  De 
tectives!  Her  window  showed  a  streak  of  dawn. 
Five-forty  by  her  watch.  She  tried  to  go  back  to 
bed,  but  at  six  she  was  up  again,  dressed  fumblingly, 
finally  sliding  the  linen  jacket  over  an  unbuttoned 
blouse.  She  had  some  difficulty  locating  the  ele 
vator,  scurrying  through  the  deserted  halls  only  to 
dash  herself  against  repeated  cul-de-sacs.  It  was 
almost  seven  when  she  descended  into  a  lobby  that 
was  littered  with  sawdust  .in  the  sweeping  up. 

She  asked  for  her  mail,  a  strange  clerk  handing  it 
out  to  her  without  askance,  and  hurried  to  a  chair 


STAR  DUST  127 

behind  a  pillar,  holding  the  envelope  between  the 
folds  of  her  skirt  without  glancing  at  it,  and  trying 
to  hide  the  trembling  of  her  arm.  She  sat  down, 
forcing  her  hand  around  and  her  gaze  to  meet  it. 
The  envelope  was  blank;  she  tore  its  flap  and  read: 
"Valet  Service.  Suits  Cleaned  and  Pressed  in  One 
Hour." 

And  then  she  went  out  into  7  A.M.  Broadway,  all 
swept  clean  and  caroling  with  the  song  of  the  car 
gong  and  the  whistlings  of  steamboats.  A  line-up  of 
theaters,  early-morning  mausoleums  of  last  night's 
madnesses,  first  met  her  eye  in  the  clean  light.  One 
of  them  was  violently  postered  with  lithographs  of 
Minnie  Maddern  Fiske.  A  three-sheet  proclaimed 
Melba.  Broadway  became  an  Olympus,  every 
passer-by  a  probable  immortal.  She  half  expected 
to  pass  John  Drew  there  as  the  Rialto  cleaned  its 
cuspidors,  polished  its  brass,  and  swept  its  front. 
She  thought  she  caught  a  flash  of  Margaret  Mazarin 
in  a  cab.  An  exultant  chill  raced  over  her  at  the 
vertical  sign,  "Rector's."  A  musical  comedy  full  of 
frothy  and  naughty  allusions  to  Rector's  had  once 
played  Forest  Park  Highlands,  St.  Louis.  It  was 
like  strolling  the  pages  of  an  illustrated  magazine. 
Some  one  jostled  her  and  smiled  around  very  closely 
into  her  face.  Suddenly  her  eyebrows  shot  up.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  the  face  under  the  gray  derby 
hat  was  as  coldly  and  as  bonelessly  fat  as  an  oyster. 
Her  two  hands  could  have  met  around  the  little 
neck  which  was  tightly  incased  in  a  soft  blue  collar 
held  with  a  gold  bar  pin.  She  quickened  her  step 
and,  what  with  the  lifted  brows,  promptly  lost  him. 

She  stopped  finally  at  a  florid  lace-and-glass- 
fronted  restaurant  on  Forty-third  Street,  with  a 
mimeographed  breakfast  menu  up  against  the 


128  STAR  DUST 

window.  Her  food  went  down  through  a  throat 
constricted  against  it.  Her  tightness  would  not 
relax. 

At  half  after  eight  she  was  back  once  more  in  her 
room,  changing  from  the  tan  linen  into  a  pink  mull, 
heavily  inserted,  too,  and  throwing  up  quite  an  aura 
of  rosiness  about  her.  She  had  only  the  tan  hat, 
too  wide  and  too  floppy  of  brim,  but  it  had  a  pic 
turesque  value,  which  is  a  greater  selling  quality 
than  chic.  In  fact,  in  her  own  eyes,  as  she  tilted  the 
mirror  for  a  full-length  view,  the  art  of  Katy  Stutz 
stood  unimpeached.  Eying  her  reflection  in  the  mir 
rored  walls  of  the  elevator,  she  felt  as  pinkly  blown 
as  a  rose,  and  looked  it.  A  head  or  two  turned  after 
her  youth.  At  the  desk  she  inquired  for  the  Pittman 
Building.  Just  opposite!  A  policeman  held  up 
traffic  to  let  her  cross.  She  picked  a  name  off  a 
third-story  window,  "Barnett  Bureau  —  Musical 
Service,"  and  rode  up  to  it. 

By  one  of  those  astonishing  flukes  of  beginner's 
good  fortune,  upon  the  occasion  of  this  very  first 
effort  Lilly  obtained. 

A  ground-glass  door  opened  into  a  room  the  size 
and  bareness  of  a  packing  case  and  crammed  to  its 
capacity  with  a  roller-top  desk,  a  stenographer  at  a 
white-pine  table,  a  cuspidor,  a  pair  of  shirt  sleeves,  a 
black  mustache,  and  a  blacker  cigar. 

Entering,  Lilly  was  surprised  at  the  measured 
tempo  of  her  voice  and  the  manner  in  which  she  per 
mitted  her  eyebrows  to  arch  ever  so  superciliously. 

"I'm  looking  for  an  engagement,"  she  said, 
speaking  through  the  ticking  of  the  typewriter. 

The  jaw  ate  in  half  an  inch  more  of  cigar  and  swung 
around  in  the  swivel. 

"Voice?" 


STAR  DUST  129 

"Yes.    High  soprano." 

He  ran  a  swift  cocked  eye  over  her  points  and 
turned  to  the  white-pine  table. 

''Send  her  down  to  Visigoth,"  he  said  to  the 
stenographer,  who  took  up  where  he  left  off. 

She  was  as  blond  and  as  bland  as  a  summer's  day. 
A  Pompadour  dipped  down  over  one  eye  and  her 
jaws  moved  as  rhythmically  as  rigorously  to  gum 
with  a  pull  to  it.  She  was  herself  caricatured.  She 
and  Lilly  exchanged  that  quickest  of  inventories, 
woman's  for  woman. 

"Sign  here." 

Lilly  signed. 

"Ten  dollars." 

"Why?" 

"Our  rules.  Ten  dollars  a  year  bureau  member 
ship,  and  fifty  per  cent  of  first  two  weeks'  salary." 

"  But  what  if— " 

"We  always  place  sooner  or  later." 

"But  in  case—" 

"Take  this  card  down  to  the  Union  Family 
Theater,  Union  Square,  and  ask  for  Robert  Visigoth. 
It's  a  two-a-day.  If  you  don't  do  business  with  him, 
come  back  to-morrow  morning." 

A  quick  dozen  of  questions  rushed  to  Lilly's  lips, 
but  instead  she  laid  down  a  new  ten-dollar  bill, 
crammed  the  slip  into  her  palm  through  the  hole  in 
her  glove,  and  went  out,  the  snapping  torrent  of 
typewriting  already  resumed. 

The  Union  Family  Theater  was  the  first  of  a  suc 
cession  of  variety  houses  that  was  to  spread,  first  to 
Harlem,  then  Philadelphia,  and  later  gird  the  country 
like  a  close-link  chain.  Vaudeville  prefaced  with 
stereopticon  views,  designed  to  appeal  to  the  strict 


i3o  STAR  DUST 

respectability  of  the  most  strictly  respectable  audi 
ences  in  the  world. 

The  high-class  Rialto  houses  might  pander  to 
low-class  comedy  and  Broadway  take  its  entertain 
ment  broad,  but  Robert  Visigoth  laid  the  corner 
stone  of  subsequent  fortunes  when  he  decided  that  a 
ten-twenty-thirty  vaudeville  audience  that  smells 
sour  of  perspiration  and  strong  foods  demands 
entertainment  as  pink  and  as  sweet  as  a  baby's  heel, 
and  that  a  gunman  in  the  gallery  will  catcall  his 
prototype  on  the  stage. 

Let  the  Noras  and  all  the  pyschanalyzed  Magdas 
go  their  problematic  and  not  always  prophylactic 
ways,  the  Visigoth  Family  Theaters  wanted  'em 
sweet,  high-necked  and  low-browed. 

Robert  Visigoth,  attorney-at-law,  whose  practice 
had  suddenly,  by  one  of  those  arbitrary  twists  as 
difficult  to  account  for  as  the  changed  course  of  a 
river,  assumed  a  theatrical  twist,  had  taken  over,  on 
cleverly  obtained  backing,  the  Union  Family  The 
ater  from  an  insolvent  client.  Within  a  year  it  had 
made  a  disappearing  island  of  the  law  office,  flowing 
over  and  finally  submerging  that  enterprise  in  the 
swifter  waters  of  the  new. 

At  the  end  of  (two  years,  Bruce  Visigoth,  a 
younger  brother  by  ten  years  and  snatched  from  the 
law  the  very  day  he  graduated  into  it,  was  already 
in  Chicago,  launching  under  the  auspices  of  The 
Enterprise  Amusement  Company,  the  People's  Fam 
ily  Theater,  Popular  Prices,  the  sixth  link  of  the 
chain  already  in  the  soldering. 

When  Lilly  found  out  the  older  of  these  brothers, 
he  was  standing  in  the  black  auditorium  of  the 
theater,  holding  an  electric  bulb  made  portable  by  a 
coil  of  cord,  and  directing  the  reverberating  ham- 


STAR  DUST  131 

mering  down  of  an  additional  brace  of  three  orchestra 
chairs  for  which  room  had  been  found  by  shifting 
the  position  of  the  bass  drum. 

A  hairy  old  watchdog,  tilted  back  against  the 
brick  side  of  the  building  and  smoking  a  pipe  so 
foul  that  its  tang  clung  to  her  hair  that  night 
as  she  brushed  it  out,  inspected  her  slip  of  paper 
and  led  her  through  a  black  labyrinth  of  wings  and 
properties. 

An  aroma  lay  on  that  blackness  that  in  some  in 
definable  way  quickened  her,  set  her  nostrils  quiver 
ing,  and  ran  along  her  entire  being  like  a  line  of  fire. 
It  smelled  of  Elizabethans  in  buckskin.  Bottom  rol 
licked  through  it,  thumb  to  nose.  Ophelia  leaned 
out  of  it.  Bernhardt,  Coquelin,  Melba,  intoned  into 
it.  Its  cold,  pink  paintiness  lay  damply  to  her  face. 
She  had  never  smelled  simmering  mascara,  but  her 
lashes  were  hot  with  it.  Suddenly  to  herself  she  was 
herself,  running  ahead  of  the  wind,  her  aching  senses 
bathed  in  an  odor  which  somehow  intoxicated  them. 
She  was  on  a  stage  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  a 
bunch  light  only  half  revealing  it  to  her.  Through 
the  megaphone  of  cupped  hands  and  the  dimness  of 
the  auditorium  a  voice  came  at  her. 

"Come  down  here,  around  through  the  left  box." 

She  groped  her  way  to  a  steel  door,  stumbling  down 
two  unsuspected  steps,  and  was  suddenly  in  the  car 
peted  silence  of  an  aisle.  Robert  Visigoth  came 
toward  her,  the  electric  bulb  held  high  and  dragging 
the  yards  of  cord  behind  him. 

"I'm  from  the  agency,"  she  said  at  once,  the  little 
beating  quality  that  she  was  feeling  all  over  her  in 
her  voice,  and  holding  out  the  slip. 

"Come  out  here,"  he  said,  "where  I  can  see  you." 

Some  daylight  flowed  in  through  a  slightly  open 


i32  STAR  DUST 

fire  exit  and  she  caught  at  a  last  moment  of  darkness 
to  straighten  her  hat. 

"Sing?" 

"Yes." 

He  shoved  open  the  iron  door  so  tnat  more  light 
flowed  over  her. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "you're  a  big  girl,  aren't  you?" 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  through  a  little  laugh 
of  embarrassment,  and  noticing  that,  regarding  her, 
he  wetted  his  lips. 

"That  part's  all  right.  What  I  need  is  a  good 
refined  ballad  voice.  Understand?  The  kind  that 
can  sing  'The  Suwanee  River'  as  if  the  only  thing  in 
the  world  that  mattered  is  that  old  plantation  down 
there.  Understand  ? ' ' 

"I  see." 

He  spoke  through  a  slight  patois,  New-Yorkese, 
but  which  she  misjudged  for  Virginian.  He  was  in 
inverse  ratio  to  her  stock  idea  of  theatrical  manager. 
Both  brothers  were  to  become  more  and  more 
subject  to  this  soft  indictment. 

Born  in  one  of  those  old  morose  houses  in  lower 
Lexington  Avenue,  each  had  lived  there  until  he 
obtained  his  degree  of  LL.D.  from  a  state  uni 
versity.  It  had  been  a  sedate,  a  mildly  prosper 
ous,  even  an  historic  home.  A  Vice  President  of  the 
United  States  had  once  owned  it.  Then  a  Major 
O.  Higginbothom,  and  finally,  for  fifteen  years  of 
tenancy,  the  Visigoths.  One  of  the  kind  whose 
genteel  hall  light  had  burned  through  the  fanlight 
decade  after  decade,  and  then  suddenly,  overnight, 
as  it  were,  disintegrated  into  a  furnished-room  house 
with  a  sign  over  the  door  bell. 

One  evening  Horace  R.  Visigoth,  of  the  law  firm 
of  Visigoth,  Visigoth  &  Higginbothom,  did  not 


STAR  DUST  133 

answer  his  wife's  soft  question  to  him  across  the' 
green-shaded  reading  lamp  of  their  library  table. 
His  head  was  quite  sunk  forward  in  a  sheaf  of  proofs. 
He  was  dead.  One  month  later  his  wife  failed  to 
awaken  to  Pauline  Visigoth's  frenzied  attempts  or 
to  even  a  dexterous  physician's  respiratory  methods. 
The  year  following  Pauline  Visigoth  married  the 
dexterous  physician  and  moved  to  Chicago. 

The  Lexington  Avenue  house  succumbed  to  a 
quick  sale,  and  in  attempting  to  divert  the  law 
business  out  of  the  clayey  rut  of  quiet  old  conserva 
tism,  the  Enterprise  Amusement  Company  was 
ultimately  to  be  born. 

Robert  Visigoth,  twenty-nine  at  the  time,  betrayed 
little  of  the  heritage  his  name  suggested.  His  Teu 
tonic  blood  pretty  well  laid,  he  was  a  trifle  too  short 
and  a  trifle  too  heavy,  and  with  none  of  his  mother's 
lean  patrician  quality  to  which  both  his  younger 
brother  and  older  sister  had  fallen  heir. 

Suggesting  future  rotundities  and  a  reddishness 
of  complexion  that  was  presently  to  purple,  at  this 
stage  his  chin  was  undoubled  and  as  square  as  a 
spade,  and,  as  so  often  happens  to  chins  of  this  po 
tentiality,  punctuated  absurdly  with  a  dimple,  and 
he  wore  a  little  clipped  edge  of  black  mustache 
which  he  tried  to  twirl. 

Busy  at  the  mannerism,  if  not  the  act,  of  twirling 
that  hirsute  adornment  of  upper  lip,  he  continued  to 
observe  Lilly. 

"You  understand?  What  I  need  is  a  real  heart- 
to-heart  voice." 

"I'm  quite  good  at  ballads." 

"Quite  good  or  darn  good?" 

"Darn." 

"Experience?" 


134  STAR   DUST 

"I'm  just  in  from  as  far  west  as — Dallas." 
"Now  what  I  want  is  a  turn  that  hasn't  struck 
the  West  yet.  Understand?  It  originated  right 
here  in  this  theater.  There  is  a  firm  of  music  pub 
lishers  in  this  town  makes  up  slides  of  its  songs,  and 
all  you  have  to  do  is  stand  beside  the  screen  and 
sing  to  the  stereopticon  illustrations.  Understand? 
You  don't  have  to  follow  the  pictures.  The  pictures 
follow  you.  It  is  sure  fire  if  it  is  handled  right,  only 
the  girl  we  had  on  last  week  must  have  wrapped  her 
vocal  cords  in  sandpaper.  The  secret  of  the  whole 
thing  is  to  make  them — out  there — live  the  song. 
Understand?" 
"I  see." 

* '  Every  woman  in  the  audience  has  to  be  the  sweet 
heart  and  every  man  the  lover  you  are  singing  to 
them  about.  And  to  do  that  the  first  one  to  live 
that  song  must  be  you.  Believe  in  yourself  before 
you  expect  the  world  to.  If  you  come  in  here  and 
tell  me  you  sing  quite  good,  it  won't  be  easy  to  con 
vince  me  of  more  if  you  begin  to  warble  like  Melba. 
Now  you  go  up  there  and  let  me  hear  a  bar  or  two. 
Take  care  of  the  last  row  gallery  and  the  first  row 
orchestra  will  take  care  of  itself  Shoot!" 

"I — haven't  my  music  with  me — my  repertoire — " 
*  *  Nonsense !    Just  a  bar  or  two — '  Suwanee  River ' 
— anything  with  heart  in  it.    Give  us  some  lights  up 
there,  Bob." 

Through  the  blackness  Lilly  moved  as  if  she  were 
sleep-walking  in  it.  Little  needles  of  nervousness 
were  out  all  over  her,  and,  absurdly  enough,  there 
walked  across  her  vision  the  utterly  irrelevant  spec 
tacle  of  old  black  Willie  with  her  feet  bound  in 
gunny  sacks  and  the  pencil  nubs  in  her  hair,  and  just 
as  irrelevantly  her  mind  began  to  pop  with  a  little 


STAR  DUST  135 

explosive  ejaculative  prayer:  "O  God,  make  him 
take  me!  O  God,  make  him  take  me!" 

The  bunch  light  had  been  dragged  down  center 
stage.  She  stood  beside  it,  opening  her  mouth  as 
if  to  muster  voice,  then  closing  it.  It  was  as  if 
water  were  swirling  around  and  around  her,  the 
unseen  presence  in  the  back  of  the  house  surging  at 
her  like  a  multitude. 

"Shoot!" 

She  looked  appealingly  in  the  direction  of  the 
hammering  down  of  the  seats. 

"Never  mind  that.  Sing  to  the  top  row  of  the 
gallery." 

A  fearful  recurrence  of  yesterday's  train-sickness 
rushed  over  her;  she  could  have  crumpled  to  her 
knees,  had  even  a  sense  of  wanting  to  faint,  but 
instead  she  opened  her  lips  again,  her  eyes  fixed  on 
the  unseen  last  two  tows  of  the  unseen  top  gallery, 
and  by  miracle  finding  a  pitch  that  left  her  plenty  of 
range. 

"Way  down  upon  the  Suwanee  River — ' 
"Louder!" 

"Far,  far  away, 

There's  where  my  heart  is  turning  ever, 
There's  where  the  old  folks  stay. 
All  the  world  am  sad  and  dreary, 
Everywhere  I  roam. 
Oh,  darkies,  how  my  heart  grows  weary — " 

The  lay  of  Page  Avenue  was  before  her,  swollen 
through  tears.  Her  mother  sewing  beside  Katy 
Stutz.  The  patient  back  of  her  father's  gray  head. 
Her  parents  on  their  knees,  far  back  there  some- 

here  beside  her  bed  of  fever.    Albert !    Their  wed- 


136  STAR  DUST 

ding  night  when  the  door  had  closed  behind  them! 
"O  God,  make  him  take  me!    Please! 

"  Far  from  the  o-old  folks — at  ho — " 

"That  will  do." 

She  stood  with  her  mouth  an  O  on  the  unfinished 
note,  hand  to  the  little  rise  of  her  bosom. 

"Meet  me  around  in  my  office  back  stage."  His 
voice  was  like  a  call  in  a  fog,  retreating  and  retreat 
ing.  She  followed  it.  They  met  in  a  narrow  patch  of 
broad  daylight. 

"I'm  afraid,"  she  began,  her  voice  breaking  on  a 
gulp— "I'm  afraid  I  didn't—" 

"You  did  very  well,"  he  said,  kindly.  "Little 
off  key  and  your  voice  won't  set  the  world  on  fire, 
and  it  has  a  tremolo  quality  that  may  be  rotten-bad 
singing,  but  it's  the  right  stuff  for  the  act." 

She  thought,  with  a  swoop  of  perception,  that  in 
this  she  discerned  the  astuteness  of  a  buyer  too 
clever  to  praise  the  article  he  covets.  She  felt  lighter, 
as  if  some  of  her  had  melted  in  the  ordeal.  The 
machinery  of  her  body  began  to  take  up  again,  the 
saliva  to  flow,  and  her  heart  to  beat  without  seeming 
to  hit  its  walls. 

"I'll  try  you  out  for  a  week.    Twenty  dollars?" 

"Yes."    Trying  to  seem  to  pro  and  con. 

"Come  to-morrow  at  ten  and  I'll  have  a  man 
down  to  go  over  next  week's  slides  with  you.  That 
gives  you  until  Monday.  Something  pink  on  the 
order  of  what  you  are  wearing  will  do,  only  fluffier. 
Rough  up  your  hair  a  bit,  too.  No,  leave  it  slick 
like  that,  but  something  fluffy  in  a  hat  or  a  sun- 
bonnet  with  a  pink  bow  under  the  chin.  Right  there 
— under  that  little  chin." 

Her  head  flew  up  from  his  touch. 


STAR  DUST  137 

"I  see." 

"Manage  it?" 

"I  think  so." 

"You  what?" 

"I  know  so." 

"Good.  Never  let  a  think  show  through  your 
answer.  Yes  or  no!" 

"Yes." 

He  tweaked  her  chin  again. 

"Watch  out  somebody  doesn't  steal  you  on  your 
way  home,  big  girl." 

"To-morrow  at  ten,"  she  repeated,  going  out 
into  the  sunshine  that  smote  her  with  the  sting  of 
hot  lances.  The  tweak  from  his  hand  lay  back 
somewhere,  branded  none  too  pleasantly  into  her 
consciousness. 

But  just  the  same,  when  she  inquired  of  a  traffic 
policeman  the  direction  to  the  Hotel  Hudson,  even 
the  mundane  wording  of  her  asking  clicked  like  happy 
castanets  into  her  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

A^D  so  it  came  about,  through  events  of  sur 
prisingly  simple  shaping,  that  her  first  week  in 
the  metropolis  found  Lilly  integral  to  it. 

She  liked  the  consciousness  that  unless  she  ap 
peared  at  the  Union  Family  Theater  at  two-fifteen 
and  at  eight-fifteen  she  was  breaking  into  the  con 
tinuity  of  a  sequence  of  events  in  which  she  had  her 
place. 

She  was  already  in  the  rush  of  assurance  that 
followed  her  sense  of  earning  capacity,  regarding  the 
Union  Family  Theater  merely  as  a  means  to  an  end, 
and  in  spare  time  had  registered  at  two  concert 
bureaus,  read  off  the  same  building  of  plate-glass 
windows,  and  had  purchased  the  score  of  "Carmen," 
humming  Michaela's  aria,  in  bed  of  mornings. 
There  was  a  letter  she  had  once  obtained  from  Max 
Rinehardt,  addressed: 

"To  Whom  It  May  Concern.  Miss  Lilly  Becker 
has  studied  with  me  for  a  period  of  three  years.  I 
consider  her  voice  a  lyric  soprano  of  fine  quality" 

Evidently  it  concerned  no  one.  The  clerk  at  the 
concert  bureau  tossed  it  aside  without  comment. 
Visigoth,  when  he  read  it  one  day  in  the  wings,  re 
turned  it  in  just  that  manner. 

She  was  secretly  ashamed  of  her  professional 
debut  in  a  role  that  would  not  have  survived  the 
ridicule  of  even  Flora  Bankhead's  easy  standards. 
Many  a  time,  together  at  matin6es,  they  had  giggled 
and  munched  chocolates  over  acts  that  hardly  rivaled 


STAR  DUST  139 

hers  for  sentimental  appeal  of  about  one  dimension. 
Plenty  of  length  and  no  depth. 

To  a  series  of  colored  views  thrown  upon  the 
screen,  Lilly  sang  from  a  dark  stage  into  the  warm 
musk  and  stale  linen-smelling  theater,  a  ballad  as 
slow  and  sweet  as  taffy  in  the  pulling. 

"  Dressed  up  in  her  gingham  gown, 
Just  to  come  with  me  to  town. 
How  the  sun  was  shining  down! 
It  seemed  to  bless  our  lit-tul  wedding  day. 

CHORUS: 

"Darling  Sue — e  dear, 
How  I  miss  your  laughing! 
Seems  to  me  I  hear  it  in  the  same  old  way. 
Darling  Sue  dear,  don't  believe  I'm  chaffing. 
Bless  your  heart  1 1  love  you  in  the  same  old  way." 

Lights!  Revealing  Lilly  in  the  pink  mull  and 
dangling  sunbonnet  beside  the  blank  white  screen. 
They  liked  her,  invariably  demanding  encore,  this 
time  the  words  and  score  of  the  chorus  thrown  upon 
the  screen  and,  to  Lilly's  importunings  and  pretty 
encouragement,  the  house  joining  in. 

By  arrangement  with  the  publishing  house,  this 
exploitation  of  song  hits  cost  the  Visigoth  brothers 
nothing.  In  fact  the  little  novelty  soon  came  to 
supplement  one  of  the  eight  acts  on  the  program, 
thus  eliminating  a  number. 

Each  week  a  new  song  score  bordered  in  hearts 
and  flowers  was  thrown  upon  that  darkness,  the 
audience  eager  to  find  a  hum  in  it. 

Lilly's  second  song,  "  Mamma,  Why  Are  You  So 
Sad  To-night?"  went  even  better  than  the  first,  and 
it  so  pleased  Robert  Visigoth,  who  in  those  years, 

had  his  ears  to  the  ground  of  the  daily  audience,  to 
10  I 


140  STAR  DUST 

hear  them  filing  out,  whistling  and  carrying  it  on 
little  tra-la-las,  that  he  called  Lilly  into  his  office 
the  first  day  of  the  second  week,  to  announce  a  five- 
dollar  raise  in  salary. 

She  had  been  in  the  habit  of  oozing  past  him  rather 
hurriedly  in  and  out  the  dark  passages,  conscious 
that  his  touch  was  ever  ready  to  slide  down  her 
length  of  arm,  or  his  knee  to  find  out  hers  and  press 
it  if  he  sat  down  beside  her  as  she  waited  in  the  wings. 

It  was  before  the  realty  aspect,  the  buying,  leasing, 
and  selling,  of  theater  property  had  engulfed  him, 
and  his  presence  around  the  theater,  often  shirt- 
sleeved,  was  hardly  a  matter  of  moment. 

However  favorably  he  differed  in  aspect  from 
Lilly's  preconception  of  the  managerial  genius,  her 
inhibitions  concerning  him  were  strong.  She  always 
sat  on  the  edge  of  her  chair  in  his  presence.  To  accept 
so  much  as  a  slip  of  paper  from  him  meant  that  his 
touch  would  trail  to  the  last  long-drawn  second.  His 
eyes  had  a  habit  of  focusing,  seeming  to  move  in  a 
bit  toward  the  tip  of  his  nose  and  grill  intimately 
into  her  being.  And  then  his  wetted  lips,  as  if  his 
mouth  were  watering. 

" You  need  to  be  waked  up,"  he  said  once  to  her. 
"You're  like  a  great  big  sleepy  cat." 

She  jerked  away  from  his  touch  and  his  reference, 
hurrying  from  the  theater,  as  always,  immediately 
after  her  act,  which  came  first  on  the  afternoon  and 
evening  bill.  Secretly  she  was  thoroughly  ashamed 
of  what  she  was  doing,  putting  each  performance 
quickly  behind  her. 

Six  hundred  and  twenty-two  dollars  still  lay  in  the 
chamois  bag  against  her  bosom,  but  the  additional 
five  dollars  a  week  on  to  her  salary  was  a  saving ; 
prop  against  the  not  infrequent  sag  of  her  spirit. 


STAR  DUST  141 

She  was  listed  at  half  a  dozen  agencies,  but 
nothing  presented  itself.  Her  first  hotel  bill,  twenty- 
eight  dollars,  sent  her  scurrying,  against  further  and 
deeper  inroads  into  the  chamois  bag,  to  an  im 
mediately  adjoining  side  street  of  brownstone  fronts 
as  without  identity  as  a  row  of  soldiers,  all  of  them 
proclaiming  the  furnished  room  to  that  great  sand 
storm  of  New  York  transients  who  blow  in  and  out 
of  them  in  nameless  whirl. 

Their  dreariness  flowed  over  her  in  cold,  soupy 
odors,  that  left  a  feeling  of  a  coating  of  grease  over 
the  surface  of  her.  The  poor  filbert  of  gaslight  burn 
ing  into  floor  after  floor  of  slits  of  hallway.  The 
climb  after  a  whole  processional  of  spotty  landladies 
whose  shortness  of  breath  contributed  to  the  odor- 
laden  air. 

The  room  which  she  finally  obtained  at  three 
dollars  a  week  was  a  third-floor  front,  shaped  like  a 
shoe  box,  with  an  aisle  of  walking  space  between  the 
cot  and  washstand,  and  as  dank  to  her  and  as  shiver- 
inducing  as  a  damp  bathing  suit  donned  at  dawn. 
But  the  matting  on  the  floor  smelled  scrubbed,  the 
bathroom  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  contained  a 
porcelain  tub  instead  of  the  usual  horror  in  painted 
tin,  and  except  for  June  bugs  that  bumbled  all  night 
against  her  ceiling,  attracted  by  the  incandescence 
from  the  theater  sign  across  the  street,  was  free 
from  those  scavengers  of  bed  slats  and  woodwork 
which,  often  as  she  inspected  from  room  to  room,  to 
her  agonized  flush,  had  crawled  across  a  landlady's 
very  denial  of  them. 

Robert  Visigoth  had  a  habit  of  appraising  this 
ready  blush  of  hers.  It  never  rushed  hotly  to  her 
face  but  what  he  noted  it  in  persiflage. 

"Look  at  her  blush!"  he  cried,  one  afternoon  as 


i42  STAR  DUST 

they  both  stooped  to  recover  her  dropped  hand  bag, 
their  heads  bumping  so  that  they  sprang  apart  in 
laughter. 

"The  idea,  Mr.  Visigoth!  I'm  not  blushing!"  she 
cried,  stinging  with  her  inability  to  control  the 
too  ready  red. 

He  ran  his  hand  over  the  smooth  glaze  of  her  hair. 

"Don't!" 

"Let's  see  if  it  will  muss.  I'll  wager  it's  painted 
on." 

"It  grows  that  way,"  she  said,  levelly. 

"I  like  it!  Clean  as  a  whistle.  Interesting.  In 
fact,  you're  a  mighty  interesting  young  woman,  if 
you  want  to  know  it,  Miss  Luella  Parlow." 

"What  is  the  song  for  next  week,  Mr.  Visigoth?" 

"'My  Pretty,  My  Pretty/"  he  said,  his  intimate 
eyes  watching  her  wriggle,  with  a  sense  of  being 
ridiculous,  on  the  hook  of  his  glance. 

"I  never  know  how  to  take  you,"  she  flared,  infuri 
ated,  and  rushed  toward  the  door. 

"Take  me— with  you." 

"Really  now — this — this  is  too  absurd." 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

"Home,  of  course.  I  have  all  this  time  to  myself 
between  now  and  the  evening  performance.  Why 
waste  it  sitting  around  with  the  dog  and  trapeze 
acts?" 

"Where  do  you  live?" 

"West  Forty-fourth  Street,  near  Eighth." 

"Where?" 

"West  Forty-fourth  Street." 

"Hm-m-m!"  he  said,  with  a  new  easiness  of 
manner  that  alarmed  her. 

"Selfish  little  girl.    All  this  time  to  yourself." 

"You  would  be  surprised  how  it  flies." 


STAR  DUST  143 

"What  do  you  do?" 

"Oh,  no  end  of  odds  and  ends.  Wash  out  things. 
Read.  Sew.  Practice.  Write." 

"What  do  you  write?  Letters  to  suitors?  Lucky 
chaps." 

"Nonsense!"  she  said,  coloring. 

"A  girl  like  you  must  have  a  string  of  them  after 
her." 

'  *  No !  I  write — you  see,  I've  always  sort  of  wanted 
to  write  fiction.  Magazine  stories.  I  like  to  scribble 
in  my  spare  time." 

"Story  writing?  You  can't  serve  two  masters  in 
this  profession. ' ' 

"Oh,  and  then  I  practice."  It  was  here  she  had 
shown  him  the  letter  addressed,  "To  Whom  It  May 
Concern."  "I  haven't  a  piano,  but  you  would  be 
surprised  how  helpful  it  is  just  to  memorize  the  role 
from  the  score." 

"What  role?" 

"I  know  four.  Michaela  is  my  last.  I  haven't 
memorized  all  of  her  aria  yet,  but  half  the  time  I'm 
singing  her  with  my  mind,  if  you  know  what  I  mean. 
I  once  had  twelve  lessons  on  Marguerite.  With 
study,  Mr.  Visigoth,  and  perhaps  some  more  lessons 
with  one  of  the  big  teachers  here,  do  you  think  I 
have  the  slightest  chance  for  opera  or — concert? 
You  can  be  frank  with  me.  Do  you?" 

He  patted  her. 

"Too  much  ambition  will  make  that  satiny  head 
of  yours  ache." 

"Let  it  ache." 

"What  you  need  more  than  lessons  is  some  one  to 
wake  you  up.  That  will  do  more  for  you  than  all 
the  training  money  can  buy.  You  need  a  rousing- 
good  love  affair.  Love,  that's  the  secret!" 


i44  STAR  DUST 

She  walked  past  him  now,  swinging  open  the 
stage  door. 

"You  can  be  so  nice,  Mr.  Visigoth,  and  so — 
horrid." 

He  followed,  laughing. 

'Til  walk  a  ways.    Which  way  you  going?" 

"Home." 

They  strolled  into  the  syrupy  warmth  of  a  late 
Indian  -  summer  afternoon.  At  each  crossing  he 
took  her  arm,  closing  gently  into  the  flesh. 

"Yes,  my  little  lady,  that's  what  you  need." 

"What?" 

"To  be  waked  up." 

"Oh,  there  you  go  again!  Is  there  no  limit  to  sex 
self -consciousness  ?  I  want  to  be  a  person  in  my 
work.  An  individual.  Not  first  and  foremost  a 
woman!" 

"Why,  my  dear  girl,  you  talk  like  a  child!  Sex  is 
the  very  soul  of  art.  The  greatest  songs  have  been 
sung  and  the  greatest  pictures  painted  because  men 
and  women  have  loved.  Don't  tell  me  a  great  big 
handsome  creature  like  you  doesn't  realize  that!" 

"Well,  just  the  same,"  with  feminine  subjective- 
ness,  "I  mean  to  make  my  way  as  an  individual  first 
and  a  woman  second.  I  give  nothing  to  you  men 
and  I  ask  nothing  except  a  fighting  chance.  I  don't 
believe  in  all  this  pay-the-price  business.  I  don't 
recognize  you  as  the  arbiters  of  my  destiny.  I'll 
pay  my  price  with  my  ability,  and  if  I  can't  pay  up 
that  way  then  I  deserve  to  fail.  Women  can  fight 
back  at  the  world  with  something  besides  their  sex. 
I  intend  to  prove  it." 

He  closed  tighter  over  her  arm. 

"I  like  you  when  you  tilt  at  windmills,  Miss  Don 
Quixote,  and  I  like  the  way  your  eyes  turn  black." 


STAR  DUST  145 

"There  you  are  at  it  again." 

"Certainly;  it's  the  law  of  life." 

"You  mean  it's  the  law  of  men!  Why  should  you 
set  the  price  of  our  success?  We  women  are  going 
to  batter  down  the  monopoly." 

"You're  a  regular  little  holy  terror  for  woman's 
rights.  Come  in  here  for  a  drink  and  tell  me  about 
it." 

They  were  approaching  the  rapids  of  Broadway, 
the  quickened  torrent  of  the  pleasure  zone  that  leaps 
high  in  folly  even  under  sunlight.  Sidewalk  hu 
manity  quickened  and  had  a  shove  to  it.  Street 
cars  and  cabs  plunged  in  seemingly  impassable 
directions.  Frivolity  was  showing  her  naked  shoulder 
on  lithograph  roof  garden  and  matinee  stage.  The 
Times  Building  stood  like  a  colossus,  breakwater  to 
the  tide.  Rector's  invited. 

"Come  in  for  a  drink,"  he  repeated. 

She  threw  him  a  northwest  glance  with  what  for 
her  amounted  to  quite  an  adventure  in  coquetry. 

"Aha!"  in  the  key  of  burlesque.  "Either  I  sully 
these  fair  lips  with  alcohol  or  to-morrow  I  awake 
jobless." 

He  was  visibly  annoyed,  dropping  her  arm  and 
hurrying  past  the  mirrored  entrance. 

"You  flatter  yourself." 

She  bit  into  her  lips,  again  with  a  sense  of  her 
ridiculousness,  confessing,  in  her  stress  and  against 
the  old  inhibition,  to  a  state  of  being  unwell. 

"It  isn't  that,  and  you  know  it!  I'm  done  up 
these  last  few  days.  Feeling  seedy.  It  must  be  this 
Indian-surnmerish  heat." 

"Poor  pussy!"  he  said,  again  good-humored. 

It  was  true  that  a  recurring  sense  of  dizziness 
would  sweep  like  a  sudden  wave  over  her,  in  street 


i46  STAR  DUST 

cars,  even  in  bed  before  she  rose  mornings,  and  that 
very  afternoon  as  she  sang  into  the  murky  darkness 
a  terrifying  sense  of  it  had  threatened  her. 

In  the  little  restaurant  in  Union  Square  which  she 
frequented,  her  healthy  young  appetite  would  prompt 
her  to  order  foods  that  when  they  arrived  she  would 
suddenly  reject.  She  tried  to  guard  against  these 
nervous  recurrences  by  resolutely  permitting  no 
thought  of  her  yesterdays  to  crop  into  her  to-days. 
Except,  daily,  she  visited  the  Public  Library,  reading 
over  St.  Louis  newspapers  of  last  week's  vintage,  and 
never  failing  to  glance  at  the  death  notices.  For  one 
week  an  advertisement  under  PERSONAL  appeared, 
which  every  time  she  encountered  it  was  sure  to  blur 
over  her  vision  with  quick  tears: 

Lilly,  come  home.     All  is  forgiven. 

She  attributed  some  of  her  nervousness  to  the 
condition  of  mind  this  little  paragraph  invariably 
induced.  To  bear  out  this  conviction  she  even 
omitted  the  visits  to  the  Library  for  three  or  four 
days,  but  still  the  flashes  of  discomfort  persisted. 

They  had  stopped  at  the  stoop  of  her  lean-looking 
rooming  house. 

"So  this  is  where  you  live,'*  he  said,  half  a  smile 
out  and  his  lids  well  down. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  unconsciously  defiant,  "and  for 
my  purpose  it's  fine." 

"No  doubt." 

"Clean,  quiet,  and  reasonable." 

"I  see,"  he  said  through  the  same  smile  that  was 
somehow  hateful  to  her,  and  after  a  moment  of  ap 
parent  indecision  raised  his  hat  and  walked  ofT. 

The  following  evening,  without  waiting  for  the 


STAR  DUST  147 

second  refrain  of  chorus  or  the  lights  to  flash  up,  and 
creating  some  confusion  down  in  the  orchestra,  Lilly 
left  the  stage  rather  hurriedly,  her  hand  groping 
ahead  of  her  as  if  to  ward  off  muzziness,  and  her  very 
first  step  into  the  wings  crumpled  up  quietly  in  a 
faint. 

She  awoke  in  her  little  damp  dungeon  of  a  dressing 
room,  a  trick  bicycle  rider  in  sateen  knickerbockers 
fanning  her  with  a  spangled  jockey  cap  and  im 
mediately  rushing  off  for  her  act,  Robert  Visigoth 
standing  and  looking  down  at  her. 

Embarrassment  flooded  her.  She  insisted  upon 
standing  immediately,  smoothing  herself  down  and 
brushing  at  the  wet  spots  where  the  water  had 
trickled  away  from  her  lips. 

"Why,"  she  said,  through  a  gasp  of  apology,  "of 
all  things !  Why,  I  have  never  done  such  a  thing  in 
my  life !  It  was  the  heat.  Oh,  how  silly  of  me !  How 
unutterably  silly!" 

He  pressed  her  down  into  a  chair. 

"You  had  better  sit  quiet  there,  my  young  miss, 
and  get  yourself  together.  One  eighth  of  an  inch 
nearer  that  bicycle  trapeze  in  the  wings  and  that 
smooth  head  of  yours  might  not  be  so  smooth  right 
now." 

"I'm  so  ashamed." 

"I'll  call  a  cab  and  take  you  home." 

"I'd  rather  you  didn't  trouble." 

"But  I'd  rather  I  did." 

She  smiled  through  an  impulse  to  dig  her  nails 
into  her  palms  and  weep  her  sense  of  ignominy. 

While  he  procured  the  cab  she  hurriedly  changed 
from  the  pink  into  the  coffee-colored  linen,  and, 
frightened  at  her  pallor  with  the  rouge  removed, 
tried  to  pinch  her  cheeks  back  to  pinkness. 


148  STAR  DUST 

In  the  hansom  and  behind  the  wooden  apron  his 
hand  crept  over  to  hers,  soothing  it. 

"Poor  little  sick  girl!"  he  said. 

She  tried  to  withdraw,  but  the  black  spots  were 
swimming  before  her,  and  to  save  herself  from  their 
engulfing  her,  as  the  shields  and  bracelets  must  have 
buried  Tarpeia,  sat  suddenly  erect,  blinking  and 
shaking  her  head. 

"Oh,  I  say  now!" 

"Why,  I— I'm  all  right—" 

His  one  arm  was  at  her  waist  and  with  the  other 
he  was  poking  open  the  little  trap  door. 

"Stop  at  the  corner." 

"No— please." 

"Yes,  please." 

She  closed  her  eyes,  and  almost  immediately  they 
drew  up  at  a  corner  drug  store  adjoining  a  long  row 
of  brownstone  fronts  deep  in  brown  studies.  He 
helped  her  down,  reading  up  at  one  of  them.  Dr. 
Barney  Lee.  "He  leaves  his  name  at  the  box  office 
once  in  a  while.  Suppose  you  stop  in  here  instead 
of  the  drug  store.  Don't  like  the  idea  of  soda- 
fountain  cures.  You've  a  little  sunstroke,  I  think." 

"No,  no,  Mr.  Visigoth.  Why,  I've  hardly  ever 
had  a  doctor  in  my  life!  The— drug  store  will — " 

"One,  two,  three — march!" 

"Please!" 

"March!  Got  money?  Good!  I'll  have  a  smoke 
in  the  cab.  If  he's  not  in,  then  I'll  drive  you  around 
to  our  house  doctor." 

He  was  in.  But  for  ten  minutes  she  sat  in  a  leather- 
and-oak  waiting  room,  beneath  a  fly-specked  Rem 
brandt's  "Night-Watch,"  a  clock  ticking  spang  into 
the  gaslighted  silence  and  the  very  chairs  seeming 
to  meditate  as  they  stood. 


STAR  DUST  149 

Then  a  pair  of  black-walnut  doors  slid  back,  and 
on  a  puff  of  iodoform  Lilly  passed  between  them  and 
they  clicked  shut  again. 

When  she  emerged  Robert  Visigoth's  cigar  was 
smoked  two  thirds  its  length  and  he  was  slumped  down, 
with  one  knee  hooked  comfortably  about  the  other. 

He  sprang  out  to  help  her  in. 

"Well?" 

Her  smile  was  drawn  across  her  face  almost  like  a 
gash. 

"Tired  waiting?"  she  said,  holding  her  lips  lifted. 

"Fix  you  up?" 

"You  were  right.  A  little  sunstroke.  A  good 
night's  rest  will  fix  me  up." 

"You've  been  playing  'possum." 

"That's  it,"  she  said,  with  the  plating  of  hired 
gayety  over  her  tones,  but  her  nails  printing  little 
half  moons  into  her  palms. 

"Just  for  punishment,  I'm  going  to  drive  you 
around  the  Park." 

"No,  no,  no!  I  don't  feel  quite  up  to  it.  He  said 
rest — a  good  night's  rest." 

He  regarded  her  unmistakable  pallor. 

"Oh,  all  right,"  sulkily,  "you  tantalizing  enigma, 
you!  Gad!  you — you'd  drive  a  man  crazy!  There's 
something  over  your  face.  A  veil.  I'd  like  to  tear 
it  off—" 

"You — you're  talking  like  a  Third  Avenue  melo 
drama." 

"I  suppose  I  am,"  he  said,  subsiding  and  regarding 
the  hooked  top  of  his  cane  the  remaining  ten  minutes 
of  the  drive.  "I  suppose  I  am." 

He  dismissed  the  cab  at  her  curb.  To  escape  his 
arm  she  even  ran  up  the  steps,  and  to  prove  how 
complete  recovery  called  down  over  one  shoulder: 


iSo  STAR  DUST 

"You've  been  kind  and  I'm  grateful.  Good 
night." 

"Prove  it,"  he  said,  up  and  after  her,  his  arm  at 
her  waist. 

"What?"  she  said,  his  meaning  flashing  as  she 
spoke.  She  was  crowding  away  from  his  nearness 
against  one  of  the  storm  doors  which  folded  back 
against  the  entrance,  sooty  light  filtering  over  them 
through  a  frosted  door  panel. 

His  face  twisted  out  of  repose,  flooded  darker  and 
darker  with  red. 

"You  devil,"  he  said,  "you  knew  you'd  get  me." 

"You  go!"  she  cried,  her  lips  pulled  with  the 
degradation  of  the  moment. 

He  grasped  her  so  that  the  breath  jumped  out  of 
her. 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  wrenching  herself  free,  "don't 
you  dare  put  your  foot  in  this  house — " 

"Then  the  Gramatan,  Lilly.  It's  quiet  and  first 
class  there — we  can  have  a  talk.  I'll  call  a  cab — the 
Gramatan.  Or  my  place — I  live  alone." 

"If  you  do  I— I'll  bite!    I'll  bite,  you  hear?" 

"Do  it,"  he  said,  his  face  the  color  that  was 
lago's,  grasping  her  then  in  the  shadow  of  the  storm 
door,  and  kissing  her  so  on  the  open  lips  that  to 
evade  him  she  had  to  wriggle  down  to  her  knees  and 
out  of  his  clasp. 

The  shamefulness  of  the  scene  not  to  be  endured, 
she  held  her  hand  with  the  key  in  it  behind  her 
back;  then  suddenly  let  it  fly  up  for  her  hatpin. 

"If  you  come  near  me — " 

He  stood  back  from  her  upflung  arm,  his  refine 
ment  of  feature  incongruous  under  the  rush  of  ox- 
blood  red,  his  teeth  showing  whiter  as  he  darkened. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  want,  then?    You  devil! 


STAR  DUST  151 

Who  are  you  ?  There's  only  one  woman  in  a  thousand 
I'd  follow  to  a  joint  like  this.  I'm  afraid  of  them. 
Now  I've  had  enough  of  this  baby  talk  from  you. 
It  doesn't  match  this  house!  What's  your  game? 
Let  me  up." 

"House!" 

"What  do  you  expect,  with  an  address  like  this? 
There's  two  kinds  of  women.  You  can't  be  the  kind 
you  pretend  to  be  and  live  here.  What  is  the 
comedy?  I  like  you,  Lilly.  Let  me  up.  Come,  put 
that  little  arm  down.  God  damn  it !  what  do  you 
want?" 

With  a  wrench  that  threw  him  backward,  a  fren 
zied  instant  of  struggle  for  the  lock,  and  she  was  in, 
slamming  the  door  behind  her,  and  up  the  two 
flights  with  such  a  sense  of  pursuit  that  her  breath 
turned  to  moans  in  her  throat. 

Once  within  her  room,  locking  her  door  on  its  very 
slam,  and  her  hat  sliding  down  on  her  unpinned  hair, 
she  dropped  down  on  her  bed  edge  so  that  the 
springs  coughed,  seeming  to  bleed  her  tears,  so 
roundly  and  full  of  agony  they  came. 

The  white  light  from  the  electric  sign  opposite 
created  a  pallor  in  the  room  that  enveloped  her  like 
a  veil.  She  rocked  herself  as  she  sat.  She  pressed 
her  palms  into  her  eyes  until  the  terrible  kind  of 
darkness  they  induced  was  sprinkled  with  red.  She 
clapped  her  hands  to  her  mouth  to  keep  down  the 
rise  of  shrieks.  She  burrowed  her  head  down  into 
her  pillow,  beating  into  the  surrounding  area  of  bed, 
chewing  at  the  sheet  end,  twisting  it  until  it  became 
rigid.  She  slid  to  the  floor  as  if  for  relief  of  its  hard 
ness;  sat  looking  into  the  white  kind  of  darkness 
with  the  rims  of  her  eyes  stretched  until  her  gaze 

smed  to  sleep.     She  fell  to  rocking  herself  again 


iS2  STAR  DUST 

and  twisting  the  sheet  in  an  outrageous  abandon 
ment  of  despair  that  was  abashing  because  it  was  so 
naked.  Her  hands  wound  each  other  in  a  dry  wash. 
She  sobbed  in  long  coughs  drawn  through  a  resisting 
throat.  Pounded  the  matting.  Dragged  her  palms 
down  over  her  face,  pulling  the  hair  with  it. 

Half  the  night  through  she  paced  the  narrow  aisle 
of  the  room,  repeating  and  repeating  until  the 
darkness  seemed  filled  with  the  rushing  of  a  million 
frantic  little  wings: 

"OGod!  OGod!  Help  me,  God!  Make  it  a  lie! 
Tell  me  that  the  doctor  lied!  God,  I  need  you! 
Where  are  you?  Save  me!  Where  are  you?  Help 
me,  God!  Help  me!" 

Thus  did  Lilly  Penny  greet  the  coming  of  her 
child. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

'"PHERE  was  no  egress  for  Lilly's  state  of  panic. 
A  It  hurled  itself  into  this  and  that  cul-de-sac, 
only  to  dash  into  a  black,  a  colossal  wall  of  ignorance 
builded  on  the  sands  of  false  and  revolting  modesty, 
and  which,  as  it  tottered,  threatened  to  crush  her. 

Her  mind  ran  hither  and  thither,  panic  and  anger 
plunging  into  storm  waves  of  sobs.  Around  and 
around  spun  her  terror  in  its  trap.  Each  pore  of  her 
body  might  have  been  a  mouth  screaming.  Distaste 
for  her  physical  awareness  mounted  upon  her  old 
peculiar  aversion.  The  maternal  did  not  even  lift 
its  head.  She  could  have  beaten  her  own  head,  and 
did,  for  the  relief  of  pain.  One  alternative  after 
another  flickered  into  her  consciousness,  only  to  die 
out  again  into  blackness.  Home!  But  by  the 
merest  flash  of  the  incongruous,  not  to  say  absurd, 
vision  of  Albert  Penny's  wilted  collar  on  the  chif 
fonier,  or  his  shirt  sleeves  that  were  held  back  with 
pink  rubber  garters,  bending  over  the  recalcitrant 
bed  caster,  knew  how  impossible  that! 

Forceps  sensitive  enough  to  lay  hold  of  an  antenna 
could  not  capture  the  vagariousness  of  all  of  this, 
but  none  the  less  it  was  just  that  ridiculous  and  irrele 
vant  flash  across  her  vision  that  eliminated  the 
almost  unbearable  tugging  of  nostalgia  at  her  heart 
strings. 

There  were  long  hours  of  dizzying  and  fascinated 
contemplation  down  into  the  cypress-sided  vale  of 
self-destruction;  that  ravine  which  gets  its  glance 


i54  STAR  DUST 

from  most  and  even  the  best  of  us.  It  seemed  to 
her  that  she  could  not  even  think  for  the  rush  of  its 
dark  waters  pressing  against  her  reason;  but  love 
of  life  was  strongest  of  all  in  Lilly.  It  was  the  sweep 
of  her  own  vitality  which  she  felt  pressing. 

She  tried  to  desire  what  had  befallen  her,  to  think 
in  terms  of  beauty;  to  feel  the  miracle  of  her 
state  and  the  age-old  throbs  that  make  maternity 
sublime.  The  sense  of  her  aversion  debased  while 
it  immersed  her.  She  reasoned  how  valiantly  whole 
eternities  of  women  had  gone  down  to  meet  mother 
hood  and  how  proudly  those  eternities  of  women  had 
worn  the  moment.  Her  mother.  Mrs.  Kemble. 
The  concept  awed  her,  but  then  memory  came 
scourging  out  of  that  long  night  of  her  childhood: 

MRS.  KEMBLE:  "Kill  me,  God!  Put  me  out  of 
it !  Please !  I  can't  suffer  any  more !  Kill  me,  God ! ' ' 

She  buried  her  head  into  her  pillow;  tried  to  think 
in  terms  of  God ;  to  intimidate  her  rebellion.  Finally 
she  did  cool  to  a  sort  of  leaden  despair  through  which 
slow  determination  began  to  percolate. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  following  morning,  a  Sunday 
that  wrapped  the  city  windily  in  the  first  cold  gray 
of  autumn,  without  having  undressed  the  night 
through,  she  ventured  as  far  as  Times  Square  for  a 
newspaper,  the  dark  halls  of  the  house  and  the  rows 
of  closed  doors  suddenly  sinister.  The  wind  caught 
at  her  flimsy  skirts,  blowing  them  forward,  and  she 
was  forced  to  clutch  the  wide  brim  of  her  hat. 
Summer  was  gone. 

But  more  than  that,  it  seemed  to  Lilly  that  a  black 
gauze  lay  across  her  eyes,  the  very  complexion  of  the 
streets  had  darkened,  the  hurried  wind-blown  clouds 
stamping  the  whole  aspect  of  things  with  turbulence. 
She  could  not  keep  the  run  out  of  her  steps,  and  her 


STAR  DUST  155 

palms  were  full  of  the  half  moons  impressed  there  by 
her  finger  nails.  The  city,  as  joyous  as  Chloe,  had 
suddenly  turned  a  frightening  grimace  upon  her. 

She  bought  a  Sunday  paper,  letting  the  prankish 
gale  around  Times  Square  scurry  the  bulk  of  it 
through  the  streets  while  she  stood  in  the  shelter  of 
the  news  stand,  unfolding  the  Furnished  Room  sec 
tion.  Wind  puffed  the  sheets  up  into  her  face,  and 
finally  she  crossed  to  a  white-tiled  lunch  room,  or 
dering  coffee  and  rolls  more  for  the  temporary  shelter 
than  for  appetite.  Scanning  column  after  column, 
occasionally  she  poked  a  toothpick  through  the  page, 
and  once  tore  out  a  little  segment,  dropping  it  into 
her  hand  bag.  It  read : 

Neatly  Furnished  Room  near  Columbia  University  and 
Kroeg  School  of  Music.  Three  dollars  and  a  half  a  week  and 
breakfasts  if  desired.  Ideal  for  refined  young  lady.  Inquire 
at  9000  Amsterdam  Avenue. 

She  paid  her  check,  inquired  direction  of  the 
cashier,  and,  hurrying  out,  boarded  a  north-bound 
Amsterdam  Avenue  car,  riding  for  half  an  hour 
through  streets  lined  in  petty  shops  and  presenting 
the  peculiar  swept  look  of  Sunday. 

She  had  cooled  to  apathy,  a  drowsiness  descending 
that  made  her  reluctant  to  leave  the  car;  could  have 
ridden  on  and  on  in  this  eased  and  half-narcotized 
state,  but  people  had  a  habit  of  remembering  her. 
A  truckman  had  followed  her  only  the  day  before 
through  half  a  block  of  snarled  traffic  to  see  that  she 
turned  properly  to  the  right.  New  York,  mad  as  a 
March  hare,  was  eager  to  direct  her.  The  conductor 
now  walked  up  the  aisle  of  car  to  tap  her  on  the 
shoDulder. 


J 


Your  corner,  miss." 


i56  STAR  DUST 

Nine  thousand  Amsterdam  Avenue  was  a  drug 
store  sidled  in  between  a  bakeshop  that  six  days  a 
week  poured  forth  sweet  hot  breath,  and  an  under 
taking  establishment  with  a  white -satin  infant's 
coffin  de  luxe  tilted  in  the  window.  The  sight  of  it 
caught  Lilly  like  a  pain.  That  peculiar  power  of 
an  obsessed  mind  to  see  in  everything  its  own  state 
reflected  had  set  in.  Queer  that  this  infant's  coffin 
should  tilt  at  her.  A  bouncing  youngster  leaned  out 
of  its  perambulator  to  dance  its  arms. 

She  hurried  into  the  drug  store.  Isaac  Neugass, 
Chemist. 

It  was  the  older-style  pharmacy,  with  a  gilt  mortar 
and  pestle  for  a  sign;  and  as  she  entered,  a  bell  at 
tached  by  a  pulley  rang  somewhere  in  a  thin,  tattling 
voice.  The  soda  fountain,  fountain  pen,  the  picture 
postcard,  the  umbrella,  and  the  face-powder  demon 
strator  had  not  yet  invaded  here.  Isaac  Neugass, 
Chemist — was  just  that.  His  walls  were  lined  in 
labeled  jars  of  panacea.  The  pungency  of  valeri- 
anate  of  ammonia  smote  the  entrant.  He  pummeled 
his  own  pills,  percolated  his  own  paregoric,  prescribed 
for  neighborhood  miseries  from  an  invariable  bottle 
that  was  slow,  sluggish,  and  malodorous  in  the 
pouring,  anointed  the  neighborhood  bruises,  and 
extracted,  always  gratis,  neighborhood  cinders  from 
neighborhood  eyes. 

A  Madison  Avenue  physician,  erstwhile  of  Amster 
dam  Avenue,  and  more  recently  of  two  honorary  ^ 
degrees,  his  own  private  hospital,  two  outer  waiting ,] 
rooms,  three  assistants,  and  four-figure  operations, 
still  diverted  quite  a  runnel  of  his  clientele  to  the 
impeccable  pharmaceutics  of  the  little  Amsterdam 
Avenue  shop,  so  that  the  motor  car  and  the  carriiige 
not  infrequently  sidled  up  to  its  curb. 


STAR  DUST  157 

At  Lilly's  entrance,  Isaac  Neugass  came  shuffling 
around  the  ground-glass  prescription  partition,  his 
hands  at  their  perpetual  dry  washing  of  each  other. 
There  was  something  of  a  dressed-up  wishbone  about 
him,  in  the  way  his  clothing  scarcely  suggested  the 
thin  body  within  them.  They  had  scarcely  a  point 
of  contact,  even  with  his  angles.  He  was  a  mere 
inner  tubing  to  what  he  wore.  A  skull  cap  hid  his 
baldness,  a  fringe  of  gray  below  it  suggesting  what 
was  not  beneath  it.  His  little  eyes  were  like  steel, 
humorously  glinting  gimlets  in  the  process  of  boring, 
the  old  face  wrinkling  up  around  them  as  pliantly 
as  a  dough  eraser.  In  fact,  when  he  laughed  his  little 
chin  with  the  tip  of  beard  did  curl  up  like  one  of 
those  rubber-toy  faces  where  chin  kicks  brow. 

"Well,"  he  said,  with  a  great  dip  of  nose  down 
into  his  smile,  "whad  can  I  do  for  you?"  He 
reminded  Lilly  of  a  great  auk,  something  alcidine  in 
the  thin  cheeks  with  the  mouth  cutting  so  widely 
toward  the  ears. 

She  had  not  realized  it,  but  suddenly  the  terrible, 
the  impersonal  detachment  of  the  past  weeks  smote 
her.  There  had  been  voiceless  days  and  days  when 
rthe  sound  of  herself  asking  direction  or  ordering 
from  a  bill  of  fare  had  an  element  of  surprise  in  it, 
and  the  toneless  voice  of  public  service  was  the  only 
one  directed  to  her:  "Step  lively."  "Two  blocks 
east."  "Don't  mention  it."  " No  more  rice  pudding 
left,  ma'am." 

When  Isaac  Neugass  said,  "Well,  whad  can  I  do 
for  you?"  something  within  her  thawed  so  that  she 
could  have  cried. 

"I'm  looking  for  this  furnished  room,"  she  said, 
and  held  out  the  slip  toward  him. 

"You  wand  my  wife,"  he  said,  waving  her  the 


158  STAR  DUST 

direction.  "Go  righd  outside  to  the  next  stoop  and 
ring  the  bell  over  Neugass." 

"Oh,  thank  you!"  she  said,  suiting  her  action  to 
his  word. 

"It's  a  nize  room.  I  could  wish  it  to  an  early  bird 
to  gatch  it." 

"That's  what  I  want,  a  nice,  quiet  room." 

"Then  you  got  it,"  he  cried.  "It's  a  room  for  a 
needle,"  his  thumb  and  forefinger  indicating  an 
infmitesibly  fine  point. 

"A  needle?" 

"So  it  could  hear  itself  fall." 

In  his  own  way  Mr.  Neugass  was  a  jokester,  in 
sisting  upon  the  laugh,  sitting  back  upon  his  figura 
tive  haunches,  waiting. 

"Then  it  is  just  what  I  want,"  said  Lilly,  giving 
him  his  smile,  "only  I  hope  it  isn't  too — " 

He  took  to  waggling  his  head,  his  little  kindly  eyes 
illuminated  with  a  sunburst  of  wrinkles  and  his  voice 
a  festooned  chant  of  rising  and  falling  inflections. 

"Sa-y,  if  you  can't  pay  three-fifty,  she'll  make  it 
three.  You  doan'  need  to  tell  her  I  told  you,  but  for 
such  a  young  lady  like  you,  sa-y,  the  brice  in  the 
newspaper  doan'  always  got  to  be  the  brice  in  the 
hand,  ain't  it?" 

She  laughed,  the  irises  that  had  crowded  out  the 
gray  in  her  eyes  suddenly  smaller  and  back  to 
normal. 

In  the  little  entrance  adjoining,  with  its  line-up 
of  door  bells,  she  pressed  the  button  as  directed.  A 
clicking  answered  her  ring,  and  she  had  to  learn 
from  a  child  who  entered  with  a  dangling  pail  of 
milk,  that  she  was  to  speak  upward  through  a  tube 
above  the  bell. 

"About  the  room?"    Yes,  she  was  to  come  up. 


STAR  DUST  159 

She  climbed  two  flights  of  dark,  clean-smelling  stairs, 
and  Mrs.  Neugass  herself  opened  the  door. 

Mary,  Rispah,  Cornelia,  Monica,  Martha  Wash 
ington,  Mrs.  Whistler,  Margaret  Ogilvy,  and  Mrs. 
Neugass,  blessed  be  their  tribe,  must  all  have  had 
about  the  same  look  about  the  eyes.  Masha  Neugass 
was  sixty,  and  looked  it.  A  blue-gingham  apron 
held  her  in  at  the  waist  so  that  she  bulged  softly  and 
fatly  above  and  below  it. 

Thirty  minutes  and  one  hundred  years  removed 
from  Millionaires'  Row,  the  apartment  was  just 
another  of  those  paradoxes  which  the  city  can  shake 
from  its  spangled  sleeve.  Built  like  a  coach,  each 
room  opening  off  a  strip  of  hallway,  it  was  a  scoured 
chromo  of  Victoria's  age  of  horrors.  The  brilliantly 
flower-splashed  wall  paper  and  carpeting.  A  front 
room  that  smelled  and  pricked  of  horsehair.  The 
little  patch  of  dining  room  brightened  by  a  red 
tablecloth,  two  canaries,  and  a  window-sill  array  of 
turnips  sprouting  in  bottles.  The  rush  of  bead 
portieres  as  you  walked  through  them.  Hassocks. 
A  freshly  washed-and-ironed  ribbon  bow  on  a  chair 
back.  Pillow  shams.  Nottingham-lace  curtains  with 
sham  drapes  woven  into  them.  A  pair  of  bisque 
pugs. 

The  room  to  let  was  the  size  of  a  freight  elevator 
and  crammed  with  a  fine  old  walnut  bed  when  there 
was  scarcely  room  for  a  cot.  Also  an  overflow  of 
curlicue  divan,  and  a  washstand.  It  was  clean  to 
coolness,  as  if  the  very  air  were  washed,  but,  entering 
it,  Mrs.  Neugass  flecked  an  imaginary  dust  particle 
from  the  divan  with  her  apron,  then  wrapping  it 
muff  fashion  about  her  hands. 

"It  ain't  big,  but  it's  gumfortable." 
'  Indeed  it  is ! "  said  Lilly,  sniffing  in  appreciatively. 


160  STAR  DUST 

"We  doan*  got  to  rent  this  room,  miss.  It's  our 
first  time.  My  husband,  if  he  had  his  way,  wouldn't. 
But  I  say  it's  a  shame  for  the  waste,  since  our 
youngest  daughter  ain't  in  it  no  more.  .  .  ." 

"It's  lovely." 

"You  see  out  there  between  those  two  chimneys? 
That's  Columbia  University.  You're  from  the 
college?  Yes?  We  brefer  it  should  be  a  student." 

"I — I'm  a  high-school  graduate,  but  not  exactly  a 
college  student.  I  mean — I'm  a  music  student. 
Voice." 

"You  doan'  tell  me!  Now  ain't  that  a  coinsti- 
dance !  For  why  you  think  I  should  have  this  room 
empty  if  not  my  own  baby  daughter  is  in  Europe 
with  her  voice!  For  three  years  already,  with  her 
gone,  miss,  and  my  husband's  daughter  down  to  her 
bookkeeping  all  day,  as  I  tell  him,  it's  like  my  heart 
will  burst  from  the  silence." 

"There  is  something  I  had  better  explain — " 

"I  want  a  young  girl  in  the  house  again,  I  tell 
him." 

Standing  there,  the  words  pressing  for  utterance 
against  her  very  teeth,  Lilly  swallowed  them  back 
again. 

"I  see,"  she  said,  smiling  her  misery.  "Then 
I'm  afraid— I—" 

"We're  used  to  a  young  girl.  You  read  maybe  of 
our  daughter  only  in  last  Sunday's  papers.  Millie 
du  Gass,  with  the  Milan  Opera?" 

Lilly  had.     "Millie  du  Gass — your  daughter!" 

"We  got  more  only  last  night  from  her  in  'Travi- 
ata.'  They  pulled  her  carriage  after  the  opera. 
Felix  Auchinloss  went  special  from  Vienna  to  conduct 
her.  That's  her  picture  there  and  there  and  there. 
Say,  ain't  that  a  coinstidance  you  should  be  a  voice ! " 


STAR  DUST  161 

Lilly  stood  regarding  one  of  the  framed  photo 
graphs.  A  lifted  young  profile,  ever  so  slightly  of 
the  father's  aquilinity,  a  vocal-looking  swell  to  the 
bosom,  and  a  chin  that  locked  up  prettily  to  the 
protuberant  upper  lip. 

Regarding  her,  such  a  nausea  of  bitterness  flowed 
over  Lilly  that  her  lips  were  too  wry  to  speak  and 
she  could  have  sobbed  out  her  plight  to  the  simple 
soul  there,  with  her  hands  in  the  mufif  of  her  apron, 
and  her  gaze  soft  to  tears  upon  the  photograph. 

"That  ain't  so  good  of  her,  miss,  as  some  her 
papa  keeps  down  in  the  store.  In  Milan  they  call 
her  the  American  Beauty.  Auchinloss  won't  con 
duct  'Faust*  without  our  Millie's  Marguerite.  How 
she  used  to  practice  it,  miss,  righd  on  that  piano 
you  seen  in  the  front  room.  It's  worth  all  the  sacri 
fices  we  made  for  such  a  success  like  hers.  I  doan' 
know  who  you  study  with,  but  if  you  come  to  us 
here,  I  wand  once  you  should  let  her  old  teacher, 
Ballman,  hear  you.  He's  the  man  that  can  find  your 
voice  if  you  got  it." 

"Oh,  I  do  want  to  come  here,  Mrs.  Neugass.  I — 
If  only —  Will  you — will  you  let  me  talk  to  you  as 
I  would  to  my  own  mother?  I — somehow — I — I 
think  you  will  understand — " 

Then  Mrs.  Neugass  came  closer,  a  little  whisper 
of  garlic  in  her  breath  and  her  eyes  screwed  to 
conniving. 

"Sa-y,  miss,  you  doan'  need  to  worry.  Doan'  tell 
it  to  my  husband  that  the  reduction  came  from  me, 
but  if  three  dollars  is  all  you  can  pay,  since  it's  for 
some  one  who  will  use  the  piano  and  liven  up  things 
a  little,  it's  worth  the  difference  to  me  in  pleasure.'7 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Neugass,  if  you  knew  what  a  place  like 
this  would  mean  to  me — now!  If  only  you — " 


162  STAR  DUST 

"All  righd,  then,  for  a  few  cents  we  doan'  dicker. 
Say  we  make  it  three  dollars,  and  on  rainy  mornings 
coffee  and  rolls  so  you  doan'  get  your  feet  wet." 

"But  I—" 

"We're  blain  beoble,  miss,  but  we  got  a  respegtable 
standing  in  the  neighborhood  for  fifteen  years.  My 
husband's  daughter  by  his  first  marriage  is  sixteen 
years  bookkeeper  down  by  Aaron  Schmoll  Paper 
Box  Company  in  Green  Street.  We  doan'  got  to 
rent,  miss,  unless  it  should  be  to  the  righd  person.  A 
nice  young  lady  like  you — " 

"But  what  if  I  were  to  tell  you,  Mrs.  Neugass, 
that  I'm  a  mar — " 

"You  got  references?  It  ain't  I  don't  trust,  but 
business  is  business,  ain't  it?" 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't.  You  see,  I'm  a  stranger. 
Here  from — the  West  to  study.  I  don't  quite  like 
it  where  I  am.  In  fact,  I  want  to  get  out  to-day." 

"Say,  doan'  I  know  how  things  can  happen?  For 
two  months  after  she  arrived  in  Munich,  where  she 
went  first,  my  Millie  used  to  write  home,  'Mamma, 
I  can't  get  myself  settled  righd.'  In  one  place  bugs 
and  in  another  they  complained  of  her  practicing. 
I  got  sympathy  for  a  girl  trying  to  get  settled.  You 
can  come  righd  away  up  into  a  room  of  mine,  miss. 
There's  no  extra  cleaning  to  be  done." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Neugass,  if  I  may!  I've  only  my 
valise  and  suitcase." 

A  complete  shrugging  of  Mrs.  Neugass  took  place, 
her  voice,  brow,  and  manner  lifting. 

"Valise  and  suitcase.    Is  that  a  baggage?" 

"I'm  sending  West  for  my  trunks  later,  Mrs. 
Neugass." 

"You'm  Gtyrcw,  not?" 

"Beg  pardon?" 


STAR  DUST  163 

"You're  Gentiles,  ain't  it?  Well,  with  Goyem 
such  things  ain't  so  important.  I'll  show  you  some 
times  the  way  my  Millie  left  home,  complete  even  to 
hand-crocheted  washrags.  Three  of  us  had  to  sit 
on  her  trunk.  You'm  Goyem,  not?" 

"I  was  reared  in  the  Unitarian  Church,  if  that's 
what  you  mean,  until — well,  I  guess  until  I  sort  of 
figured  out  my  own  religion  for  myself." 

"We're  Jews,  you  know,  miss,  in  case  you  should 
have  any  richas." 

"Richas?" 

"Prejudices  against  us,  like  some.  My  husband 
has  one  of  the  finest  cantor  voices  of  any  temple  in 
the  city." 

"No,  no,  Mrs.  Neugass.  I  just  love  Jewish 
people.  Some  of  the  nicest  folks  we  knew  in  St. 
Lo — I  ever  knew — have  been  Jews,"  cried  Lilly, 
with  the  colossal,  the  unconscious  patronage  of  race 
consciousness. 

It  left  no  welt,  however,  across  the  sensibilities  of 
Mrs.  Neugass.  The  centuries  had  seen  to  that. 
She  was  craven  and  she  was  superb  in  her  heritage. 

"I  always  say,  thank  God  for  whad  I  am,  but  it 
doan'  matter  to  me  whad  anybody  else  is,  just  so  she 
is  that  with  the  best  she  has  in  her." 

"Exactly.  There — there  is  something  I  ought  to 
say  to  you,  Mrs.  Neugass.  You've  made  it  so  diffi 
cult,  with  your  kindness,  but  I — well,  I —  There 
are  certain  conditions  I  want  you  to  know  about. 
I —  Not  a —  I  could  only  take  the  room  for  a 
few  months,  Mrs.  Neugass,  because  I — " 

"Say,  doan'  I  know  how  it  is  with  students?" 


"No,  no-" 


They  go  home  when  it  comes  summer.     You 
doan'  got  to  worry.    It  ain't  like  we  need  it  to  pay 


164  STAR  DUST 

rent  with.    You  got  my  word  it's  all  righd,  Miss — 
The  name,  blease — Miss  what?" 

'Tar— Parlow.     Lilly  Parlow." 

''All  righd,  Miss  Parlow;  that  makes  everything 
fine." 

She  opened  her  purse,  unfolding  a  bill. 

"I'll  pay  now,"  she  said,  calm  with  sudden 
decision. 

"Sa-y,  I  would  have  trusted  you.  But  you're 
like  me,  I  always  say  money  speaks  louder  than 
words." 

"I'll  be  right  back,  Mrs.  Neugass." 

"That's  good.  I'll  have  out  fresh  towels.  That's 
one  thing  I  doan'  expect  from  nobody  is  to  stint  on 
towels." 

And  so  it  came  about  that  at  the  moment  Robert 
Visigoth  was  confronted  with  a  sudden  gap  in  his 
program,  Lilly  Penny,  with  almost  the  week's  lodging 
still  to  her  credit,  was  tiptoeing  through  the  moldy 
halls  of  the  house  in  Forty-fourth  Street,  her  luggage 
hitting  against  wall  and  banisters  and  a  palpitating 
fear  fuddling  her  haste. 

At  the  second  flight  down  she  experienced  her  first 
and  by  no  means  fragrant  encounter  in  these  hall 
ways.  A  door  flew  open  with  a  rush  and,  her  thin 
body  wrapped  in  something  ornate  and  flowing  that 
was  like  a  quick  sheaf  of  flame  around  her,  a  woman 
dragged  suddenly  out  to  the  head  of  the  stairs,  by 
the  actual  scruff  of  the  neck,  the  ridiculous  figure 
of  a  male,  his  collar — the  necktie  streaming  from 
it — in  his  hand. 

She  spat  then  a  bombardment  of  screaming  pro 
fanity  that  sickened  Lilly  as  she  stood  unseen  and 
flattened  against  the  wall.  A  further  shove  sent  him 
sprawling  down  the  remaining  stairs,  and  from  the 


i 


STAR  DUST  165 

open  doorway  a  flung  waistcoat  and  coat  draped  him 
ludicrously  as  they  struck. 

" Cheap  skate!    Piker!    Skinflint!" 

Then  a  slamming,  reverberating  door,  and,  while 
she  stood  trembling  and  waiting,  the  creature  on  the 
stairs,  a  hulk  of  Swede  with  short,  square  teeth 
and  a  corner  of  lip  that  snarled  back  to  bare  them, 
scrambled  into  his  coat,  stumbling  out  the  front  door, 
collar  still  in  his  clutch. 

Then  Lilly  wound  her  weak-kneed  way  down  the 
flight  after  him,  softly,  to  save  the  creak,  her  luggage 
held  out  before  her. 

The  air  outside  seemed  cleansing  as  water  to  her. 
She  could  not  breathe  deeply  enough  of  it.  For  a 
long  and  indeterminate  period  she  stood  at  the 
corner,  Amsterdam  Avenue  car  after  car  rumbling 
past,  her  luggage  on  the  sidewalk  and  inclosing  her 
in  a  little  island. 

Indecision  buffeted  her.  Even  Mrs.  Neugass  and 
her  apartment  had  suddenly  become  abhorrent; 
Broadway  as  barren  as  any  granite  gully  and  some 
how  terrifying.  She  strolled  a  block  toward  the 
station,  yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  in  the  back  of 
her  head  Lilly  did  not  know  the  impulse  of  home  to 
be  a  mock  one. 

The  tremendous  trifles  began  their  running  fire. 

Her  mother  pulling  her  corsets  in  so  that  they 
bottled  her  up  more  and  more  into  the  shape  of  an 
hourglass.  That  caster  for  the  brass  bed.  Those 
interminable  discussions  over  that  caster  for  the 
.brass  bed! 

She  boarded  an  Amsterdam  Avenue  car. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  following  months  of  her  life  always  seemed 
to  Lilly  to  have  hung  suspended  without  any 
forward  march  to  them,  and  entirely  surrounded 
with  a  colorless  fluid  which  distorted  reality,  as  a 
hand  seen  through  a  fish  bowl  of  water  is  distorted. 
There  descended  upon  her  whole  rows  of  days  that 
were  swollen  with  inertia.  Her  little  window  looked 
out  upon  an  ocean  of  roofs,  and  across  her  distant 
horizon  was  a  strident  picture  in  electricity  of  an  old 
woman  in  a  Dutch  cap  beating  a  tub  of  proclaimed 
soap  flakes  into  an  incandescent  froth. 

She  would  sit  with  her  cheek  crumpled  against 
her  hand,  looking  out  over  this,  her  mind  hardly 
stirring.  There  still  lay  three  one-hundred-dollar 
bills,  crisply  warm,  against  her  bosom,  and  during 
the  long  arid  spell  that  followed  her  first  stroke  of 
good  fortune  they  were  to  her  like  a  sedative  touch, 
pressing  down  a  more  and  more  frequently  recurring 
rise  of  fear. 

Two  or  three  mornings  a  week  she  ventured  in 
among  the  agencies,  occasionally  an  address  handed 
out  to  her  which  she  followed  up,  always  vainly. 

There  was  something  gone  from  Lilly,  these 
months,  as  if  a  line  of  resiliency  within  her  had 
snapped  like  a  rubber  band.  It  showed  most  in  her 
slowed  step  and  her  head  not  quite  so  flung  up. 

One  Saturday  night  she  did  earn  twenty  dollars, 
singing,  a  red-white-and-blue  paper  cap  on  her  head, 
the  "Star-spangled  Banner"  and  the  "Marsellaise" 


STAR  DUST  167 

on  the  up-and-down-stream  excursion  of  the  Annual 
Convention  of  Commercial  Photographers. 

During  their  clambake  and  dance  at  Grody's 
Grove,  just  beyond  Coney  Island,  she  remained  on 
the  boat,  lying  back  in  a  deck  chair,  facing  a  night 
brilliantly  pointed  with  stars.  The  machinery  of 
her  mind  might  have  ceased  with  the  chugging  of  the 
boat.  She  lay  the  five  hours  of  her  wait,  floating  in 
a  state  of  the  complete  disembodiment  of  which  she 
was  peculiarly  capable. 

At  one  o'clock  the  convention,  highly  inflamed, 
came  trooping  back  on  board,  the  boat  nosing  down 
stream,  brilliant  and  terrible  with  orgy. 

Twice  she  was  grasped  by  revelers  who  were  little 
more  than  bashing  bulls,  and  before  she  could  fight 
them  off,  her  face  and  neck,  through  the  sheer- 
ness  of  her  blouse,  were  covered  with  hot,  wet, 
and  beery  kisses.  The  third  time  she  fought  off 
with  her  hatpin,  inflicting  a  deep  red  scratch  across 
a  too  loose  jowl.  She  took  refuge,  finally,  finding 
out  by  desperate  instinct  the  only  other  woman  on 
board.  A  cook  down  in  the  reeking  kitchen  of  the 
one-screw  steamer,  who  had  grown  old  so  horribly 
that  her  only  remaining  tooth  was  a  tusk  that  hung 
deeply  beneath  her  lower  lip.  But  she  found  out  a 
bench  rug  for  Lilly,  so  that  the  trip  home  she  lay 
there  in  the  stench  of  strong  foods  and  hot  machinery, 
stupefied  with  misery. 

And  yet,  withal,  a  certain  exultation  had  hold  of 
her  these  strangely  unreal  weeks,  her  terror  of  the 
life  about  to  be  subdued  somewhere  underneath  her 
consciousness,  and  each  to-morrow  reassuringly 
remote. 

The  long  unfettered  days.  Her  own  latchkey  to 
come  and  go  at  will.  The  lay  of  those  three  crisp 


168  STAR  DUST 

bills  against  her  heart.  Her  little  economies,  how 
ever,  grew  against  a  day  which  she  hardly  contem 
plated  and  for  which  she  certainly  did  not  plan. 
Very  often  she  ate  in  her  own  room,  a  sandwich  and  a 
bottle  of  milk  from  a  corner  delicatessen.  She  had 
already  learned  those  small  private  economies  of  the 
petty  and  penny  wise.  The  mirror-pasted  handker 
chief.  The  gas-jet-brewed  egg.  The  hand-fluted 
niching.  Once,  in  her  absence,  Mrs.  Neugass  had 
pressed  out  her  dark-brown-cloth  coat  suit,  wrinkled 
from  weeks  in  her  suitcase,  and  which  she  had  left 
hanging  before  the  open  window. 

The  print  of  these  kindly  people  was  like  an  in 
delible  rubber  stamp  into  the  premises.  Mr.  Neu 
gass  had  already  presented  her  with  a  jar  of  Millie 
face  cream  and  a  preparation  for  cleaning  kid  gloves. 
Sundays  she  was  invariably  importuned  to  dine 
with  the  family,  and  of  occasional  evenings,  Alma 
Neugass,  angular  and  full  of  the  knobs  of  protruding 
neckbones,  elbows,  and  shoulder  blades,  and  with 
little  sacs  under  her  eyes  as  if  she  had  wept  down 
into  them  that  life  could  be  so  tasteless,  would  knock 
at  her  door,  and  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  sometimes 
up  to  midnight,  sit  on  the  edge  of  Lilly's  bed,  the 
drone  of  their  conversation  surviving  repeated 
rappings  from  the  parental  bedroom,  adjoining. 

There  was  something  about  Alma  of  an  old  glove 
just  about  ready  to  breathe  out  and  flatten  from  the 
print  of  a  recent  hand.  Fifteen  years  of  debit  and 
credit  and  days  which  swung  with  pendulum  fidelity 
within  the  arc  of  routine  had  creased  and  dried  her 
of  sap. 

The  whiteness  of  Lilly  and  the  swift,  shining,  back 
ward  rush  of  her  hair  were  a  source  of  wistful  and 
vicarious  delight  to  her.  "Whoever  named  you 


STAR  DUST  169 

Lilly  was  right,"  she  said  upon  one  of  these  midnight 
confabs  so  immRmoriably  dear  to  women,  when  hair 
pins  can  be  removed  and  the  dig  of  skirt  bands  un 
hooked.  ''You're  so  snowy,  and  soft,  too;  you  feel 
like  a  kitten's  ear.  And  that  shining  head  of  yours ! " 

"But  all  my  life  I've  wanted  to  be  blond.  Sun 
people  I  call  them." 

"Millie  is  a  blonde, "  said  Miss  Neugass,  glancing 
toward  one  of  the  photographs  that  graced  even 
Lilly's  wall.  "There's  a  girl  was  born  in  the  sun!" 

"You've  been  part  of  her  sun,  Miss  Neugass. 
Your  parents  have  told  me  how  for  eight  years  half 
of  your  earnings  went  toward  her  education." 

"Life  is  a  beehive,  Miss  Parlow,"  said  Alma,  her 
rather  grandiloquent  and  apiarian  simile  highly 
inaccurate,  "some  of  us  are  the  drones,  some  the 
workers,  and  some  the  queens.  Millie  happened  to 
be  a  queen." 

"How  can  you  say  that?  Happened!  What  if 
Napoleon  had  never  left  Corsica,  or  Lincoln  the  back 
woods,  or  Jeanne  d'Arc  her  village,  just  because  they 
decided  environment  had  placed  them  there." 

"Quite  right,  but  it  is  their  being  queens,  drones, 
or  workers  determines  their  action." 

"Well,  whether  or  not  I  was  born  for  it,  I  aspire 
to  be  a  queen." 

"Fine.  Only  be  sure  your  arm  is  long  enough  to 
reach  what  you  want." 

"But  how  can  I  tell  if  I  don't  stretch  and  stretch?" 

"You  can't.  Most  of  us  never  know  when  we've 
used  up  the  last  inch  of  reach,  and  keep  on  straining 
to  touch  what  God  or  circumstance,  or  call  it  what 
you  will,  has  placed  beyond  us." 

'Yes,  but  it  is  not  knowing  makes  us  capable  of 
)ing  and  striving." 


i;o  STAR  DUST 

"To  me  that  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of  living.  The 
hearts  that  pass  by  the  jobs  they  are  fitted  for,  to  eat 
themselves  out  struggling  to  do  what  they  think 
they're  fitted  for." 

"You're  a  fatalist." 

"Not  at  all.  The  way  to  know  the  reach  of  your 
arm  is  to  sprain  it.  I  sprained  mine,  and  it  wasn't 
until  the  ligaments  began  to  pull  that  I  had  the 
courage  to  face  the  fact  that  I  was  made  out  of 
bookkeeper  instead  of  concert-pianist  stuff." 

"You,  Miss  Neugass,  a  pianist!" 

"Sounds  queer  to  you,  doesn't  it?" 

"What— interfered?" 

"My  own  realization.  One  night  before  he  moved 
from  the  neighborhood  Doctor  Feldman  sent  pa  a 
pair  of  seats  for  De  Pachman.  I  was  seventeen  then, 
and  Millie  seven.  Ma  stayed  in  the  store  and  pa  and 
I  went.  I  remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  The 
concert  was  at  Beethoven  Hall  and  it  snowed  so 
that  when  we  arrived  I  made  pa  slip  off  his  shoes 
under  the  chair,  for  his  socks  to  dry.  I  had  been 
studying  for  eight  years  then  and  my  teacher 
was  arranging  a  recital.  Strangest  thing,  but  De 
Pachman  played  every  single  thing  of  Chopin's  that 
I  had  on  my  own  little  repertoire,  only  under  his 
touch  it  was  real  lace  played  into  perfect  design.  I 
think  pa  must  have  lived  through  everything  with  me 
that  night.  He's  got  the  finest  musical  instinct  in 
the  family,  Millie  included.  We  didn't  say  a  word 
all  the  way  home,  but  next  day  when  I  told  him  that 
I  was  going  to  business  college  on  the  money  we  were 
going  to  put  into  the  recital,  he  didn't  say  a  word, 
either.  Just  patted  my  hand.  He  knew!  It  wasn't 
so  much  a  matter  of  technique,  only  when  I  played 
Nocturne  in  D  flat  a  hammer  inside  the  piano  case 


STAR  DUST  171 

hit  a  wire;  when  De  Pachman  touched  those  same 
keys  a  nerve  kissed  a  heartbeat." 

' '  Alma — Neugass !   You  poor — you  splendid  girl ! '  ' 

Curled  up  there  on  the  narrow  bed,  her  bony  pro 
file  against  the  wall  and  her  knees  hugged  up  to  her 
after  the  manner  of  the  excessively  thin,  a  smile 
had  come  out  on  Miss  Neugass's  face  as  if  the  taste 
of  renunciation  were  anything  but  bitter. 

"I  don't  know  what  kind  of  a  pianist  I  might  have 
made,  but  I  do  know  I've  made  a  good  bookkeeper 
and  that  a  little  talent  took  a  chance  on  stepping 
aside  for  a  bigger." 

"You  mean  your  sister?" 

"There's  a  talent  for  you!  Millie  has  a  voice 
like  one  of  those  revolving  barber  poles,  as  round  at 
the  bottom  as  it  is  at  the  top,  and  it  goes  up  and  up 
seemingly  without  end.  There  never  was  any  doubt 
about  Millie." 

"Oh,  Miss  Neugass,  you  frighten  me!  What  if 
my  arm  is  too  short  ?  Your  sister's  teacher,  Ballman, 
to  whom  your  mother  sent  me,  says  so  little." 

"Ballman  is  a  great  voice  builder,  but  he  doesn't 
concern  himself  with  the  future  of  his  pupils.  He's 
a  dear  old  fogy  with  a  single-track  mind." 

"What  did  he  used  to  say  of  your  sister?" 

"Nothing  much  except  that  he  used  to  call  her 
his  wonder-child  and  shut  up  like  a  clam  when  we 
tried  to  discuss  her  future  with  him.  What  you  need 
now,  if  you're  ever  really  going  to  get  anywhere,  is 
an  audition." 

"Audition?" 

"One  of  the  big  opera  directors  to  hear  you.  It's 
not  easy  to  arrange  at  the  Metropolitan.  Ballman 
has  no  pull.  It  takes  a  man  like  Auchinloss  or  Trieste 
r  one  of  the  big  guns." 


12 


172  STAR  DUST 

"If  only  I  could  get  started,  Miss  Neugass,  on  the 
right  track!" 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do.  When  Auchinloss  comes 
this  winter  I'll  have  him  hear  you.  That  may  pave 
the  way  to  something.  He's  the  prince  of  them  all. 
His  judgment  never  fails.  He's  only  stamped  his 
approval  on  five  or  six,  but  he's  never  missed.  They 
say  he  heard  Paula  Anchutz  singing  her  baby  to 
sleep  one  night  as  he  happened  to  pass  her  cottage, 
and  he  rang  her  door  bell." 

"Auchinloss  discovered  Paula  Anchutz!' 

' '  He  decided  her  greatness  after  a  few  bars.  Some 
day  I'll  read  you  Millie's  letter  home  about  her 
audition  in  Vienna.  After  about  six  bars  of  the 
'Jewel  Song'  he  leaped  up  over  the  footlights, 
screamed  at  her,  kissed  her,  drew  up  a  chair,  and 
began  to  plan  out  the  entire  campaign  of  her  future, 
so  rapidly  that  the  poor  child  said  everything  was 
swinging  in  circles  before  her." 

Her  eyes  two  flaming  orbits,  Lilly  sat  staring,  her 
lips  slightly  open. 

"And  that  was  the  beginning." 

"Yes,  that  was  the  beginning  of — everything," 
said  Miss  Neugass,  with  a  twist  on  her  lips. 

"Oh,  I —    Even  to  hear  it  thrills  me  so  that  I- 
Thrills  me  so!    But  what,  Miss  Neugass — what 
he  hadn't—" 

"That  is  where  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to 
take  your  medicine.  There's  an  article  about  him  in 
this  month's  Musical  Gazette.  If  he  thinks  you've 
the  stuff  great  singers  are  made  of,  it's  a  repetition 
of  his  scene  with  Millie  every  time.  But  this  article 
goes  on  to  say,  if  he  rubs  his  hands  together  and  says, 
'Very  nice,'  and  walks  off,  that  means  he  thinks  you 
will  probably  make  a  better  bookkeeper  or  baby 


STAR  DUST  173 

dandier  than  you  will  a  prima  donna.  Millie  used 
to  write  that  around  the  opera  house  in  Vienna,  when 
Auchinloss  started  rubbing  his  hands  together  after 
an  audition,  everybody  used  to  have  the  smelling 
salts  ready.'* 

"Miss  Neugass — you've  heard  me  practice.  Tell 
me  the  truth !  Do  you  think  my  ambition  is  bigger 
than  my  voice?  Tell  me  as  you  would  your  sister." 

The  veil  of  a  pause  hung  between  them,  Miss 
Neugass  unfolding  her  legs  and  letting  them  hang 
over  the  side  of  the  bed,  as  if  she  would  flee  the 
moment. 

"Why,  I'm  no  critic,  Miss  Parlow.  All  I  inherit 
is  some  of  my  father's  natural  musical  instinct." 

"You're  evading  me,  like  Ballman  does!  Tell  me! 
You  may  save  me  as  you  saved  yourself.  Am  I 
chasing  a  phantom?" 

"I  swear  to  you  I  don't  know.  I  like  your  voice. 
I  think  it  has  a  beautiful  rich  quality.  I  agree  with 
Ballman,  it  has  fine  timbre." 

"Timbre— I'm  tired  hearing  that—" 

"That  counts  in  voice  almost  as  much  as  range." 

"No,  no,  don't  evade.    You  think  it  lacks  range?"" 

"I  don't  know.  It  lacks  something — as  if — well, 
if  you'll  pardon  my  saying  it,  as  if  it  didn't  reach  as 
far  as  your  temperament  could  fling  it." 

"That's  it  exactly!  I  feel  that  about  myself  in 
everything — almost  as  if — as  if  it  would  take 
another  generation  of  me  to  complete  me — if — if  you 
get  what  I  mean." 

"There  is  something  in  that." 

"I  know  what  you  think  in  your  heart.  I'm  a 
vaudeville  product  with  a  grand-opera  aspiration." 

"I'm  not  capable  of  judging." 
'You  judged  your  sister." 


i 


174  STAR  DUST 

"Ah,  but  Millie's  voice  there  was  no  mistaking. 
Her  talent  needed  hardly  to  be  developed.  It 
opened  naturally,  like  a  rose.  Nine  voices  out  of 
ten  have  to  be  drilled  for  like  precious  ore.  Just  you 
study  on.  I'll  have  Auchinloss  hear  you  when  he 


comes  over." 


"You're  sure,  Miss  Neugass,  they're  coming?" 

"That's  what  the  papers  keep  saying.  She's  to 
sing  three  operas  in  January,  with  Auchinloss  con 
ducting.  We're  expecting  daily  to  hear  from  my 
sister,  verifying  it." 

"You  don't  know — exactly?" 

"No." 

"If  only —  You  don't  think  it  will  be  this  side 
of  January?  You  see,  after  January  my — my  plans 
may  be  uncertain." 

"I  understand.  He's  to  conduct  his  own  sym 
phony  in  December,  to  be  played  the  first  time  in 
this  country,  somewhere  around  Christmas  in  Bos 
ton,  I  think." 

"Will  you  be  wanting  this  room  then?" 

Miss  Neugass  swung  her  face  with  its  considerable 
dip  of  nose  toward  Lilly. 

"You  don't  think  this  place  will  hold  Millie  any 
more?  You  don't  think,  for  instance,  the  great  Du 
Gass  could  receive  the  reporters — here!" 

"But,  after  all,  it's  her  home." 

A  levelness  of  expression  came  down  over  the  face 
of  Miss  Neugass,  as  if  a  shade  had  been  lowered 
across  it,  her  voice,  too,  leveled  of  any  inflection. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "you  know  about  my 
sister  and — Auchinloss." 

"You  mean—" 

"Oh,  I  realize  everybody  knows — that  is,  every 
body  except  my  parents." 


STAR  DUST  175 

"I  didn't— " 

"That's  because  you  don't  belong  yet!  Wait 
until  you've  worked  your  way  in  a  bit.  I've  known 
it  long  enough.  Two  years." 

"Then  she— you— " 

"She  was  a  baby  when  she  left,  Miss  Parlow. 
Even  if  there  had  been  the  money  to  send  me  along 
with  her,  we  wouldn't  have  felt  the  need  of  it.  I 
could  have  staked  my  life  on  that  child.  Not  that 
I'm  blaming  her,  only  I — God!  I  could  have  staked 
my  life." 

"He's—" 

"Already  married.  She  wrote  me  the  whole  story 
two  years  ago.  It's  an  old  one.  So  old  it's  got 
barnacles.  I  sometimes  wonder  it  came  to  me  with 
the  terrible  shock  it  did.  She  was  so  young — too 
young  to  get  ahead  so  quickly  even  with  her  gifts. 
He  has  a  son  almost  her  age.  He's  forty  and  she's 
twenty.  The  wife  in  an  insane  asylum  somewhere 
outside  of  Paris.  Our  Millie!  I  don't  think  I  even 
realize  it  yet.  Beauty  and  the  Beast  they  call  them 
in  Milan." 

"Horrible!" 

"That  baby.  The  whole  world  before  her.  It 
was  all  with  her  or  nothing,  she  wrote,  and  she  chose 
all.  She  sang  six  leading  roles  that  first  year.  It 
made  her.  I — I  don't  blame  her,  somehow — that 
baby.  It's  him  I  hate.  Sometimes  I  wonder  how 
I'm  going  to  hold  back,  when  I  lay  hands  on  him, 
from — killing.  But  I  won't.  I'll  grin  and  bear  it 
just  as  if  her  beautiful  little  white  self  were  no  more 
to  me  than  an  alabaster  vase  after  it's  cracked." 

' '  And  your  parents  ? ' ' 

"That's  all  she  writes  of,  now  that  she  thinks 
she  is  coming,  to  keep  it  from  them!  I  wake  up 


176  STAR  DUST 

nights  in  a  cold  sweat  over  it.    Wringing  wet  with 
the  fear  of  my  job." 

"Your  mother  and  sweet  little  old  father!" 

"That's  it;  they're  like  two  babes  in  the  woods 
morally.  They  don't  know  any  gradation  except 
black  and  white.  Virtue  and  sin.  A  woman  is  good 
or  a  woman  is  rotten  bad.  She  falls  or  she  doesn't." 

"Oh,  I  know  the  relentlessness  of  that  single-track 
code  of  right  and  wrong." 

"My  stepmother,  good  soul  that  she  is,  would 
take  the  last  stitch  off  her  back  for  what  she  calls 
honest  need,  but  I've  seen  her  slam  the  door  in  the 
face  of  one  of  our  neighbor  girls  in  trouble  who's 
come  to  my  father  begging  for  help — medicine. 
That's  what  I'm  up  against,  Miss  Parlow,  keeping 
from  those  two  old  people  what  their  daughter — is." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear!" 

"I  don't  know  why  I'm  airing  my  troubles  here. 
God  knows  you  are  bottled  up  enough  about  yours, 
if  you  have  any,  but  I  thought  surely  you  knew. 
Everyone  does.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  my  sister's 
home-coming  is  a  nightmare  to  me?  She  doesn't 
want  to  come;  I  can  read  between  the  lines  of  h< 
letter  she's  fighting  it.  But  you  see,  Auchinloss  is 
great  man.  He's  been  invited  to  conduct  his  01 
symphony  at  its  American  premiere  and  naturall; 
has  taken  this  opportunity  to  bring  about  h< 
American  debut.  You  can  imagine  my  parents' 
pride." 

"I  can  see  it.    Why,  your  father  can't  keep  his 
face  straight — he's  always  sort  of  smiling,  slyly, 
himself." 

"Their  daughter,  Millie  du  Gass,  coming  hom< 
with  an  opera  triumph  back  of  her  in  every  Europeai 
city,  the  great  Auchinloss  himself  coming  to  condu< 


STAR  DUST  177 

for  her  American  debut.  That  is  the  kind  of  home 
coming  they're  looking  forward  to  and  the  kind  I 
must  make  possible  for  them.  My  mother,  who 
screams  out  every  girl  in  trouble  who  dares  to 
come  into  the  drug  store  for  help!" 

When  Lilly  bade  Alma  Neugass  good  night,  they 
kissed,  a  dark  bony  hand  lingering  on  each  of  Lilly's 
shoulders. 

"You've  your  decision  before  you  yet,  Miss  Par- 
low,  and  you're  young  and  pretty,  too.  Much  as  I 
love  that  little  sister  of  mine,  and  can't  find  it  in  my 
heart  to  blame  her,  I  know  that  somewhere  there  are 
women  big  enough  not  to  have  to  pay  the  price. 
You — there's  something  about  you — something  so, 
if  you'll  permit  me  to  say  it,  so  boyish — so  clean- 
so  wholesome.  You  should  be  big  enough  not  to 
have  to  pay  the  price." 

"If  only  I  felt  that  your  sister — cared.  That  is  so 
horrible — the  beauty-and-the-beast  part.  To  place 
personal  ambition  above  her  body — the  body  that 
holds  her  soul!  Ugh!" 

"She  sent  his  picture.  He's  hairy  like  an  ape. 
My  little  white  sister — he's — hairy,  I  tell  you,  like 
an  ape." 

"I  think  I  would  have  to  want  something — love 
something — enough  to  tear  out  my  very  heart  for  it 
before  I  could  pay  her  price.  Nothing  on  earth,  Miss 
Neugass,  can  be  so  hideous — as  that !  I — I  imagine 
it's  flying  in  the  face  of  the  first  law  of  nature — 
nothing  so  hideous  as  giving  of  self  to — in — in — 
payment — " 

Tears  were  racking  the  worn  form  of  Miss  Neugass, 
Lilly  wrapping  her  in  arms  that  soothed. 

"You  musn't,"  she  said;  "you've  your  big  job 
ahead  of  you." 


cl-UCctA 


i78  STAR  DUST 

Through  the  left  wall  came  a  sharp  trilogy  of  raps. 

"All  right,  ma.  Coming!"  cried  Miss  Neugass, 
starting  up  instantly,  her  voice  lifted  and  absolutely 
without  tremor. 

That  night  Lilly  dreamed  the  whole  of  her  mar 
riage.  Her  father  with  his  face  distorted  by  lathe 
before  his  shaving  mirror.  The  Leffingwell  Rock 
Church.  Little  Evelyn  Kemble  placing  the  white- 
satin  cushion.  Herself  and  Albert  finally  locking  the 
door  of  their  new  little  home  that  wedding  night. 

It  was  then  she  awoke  with  a  scream. 


CHAPTER  XX 

ABOUT  a  week  later  an  advertisement  in  a  morn 
ing  paper  caught  Lilly's  eye. 

WANTED: — Refined  young  woman  of  good  appear 
ance  and  soprano  voice,  to  sing  in  music  store.  Must 
be  able  to  accompany  self.  Apply  between  twelve 
and  six.  Broadway  Melody  Shop,  1432  Broadway. 

A  recurring  and  dragging  sense  of  lassitude  was 
over  her  these  mornings,  so  that  it  was  all  she  could 
do  to  drag  herself  through  two  hours  of  practice  in 
the  parlor,  scrupulously  given  over  by  Mrs.  Neugass, 
who  moved  constantly  and  audibly  about  the 
kitchen. 

Her  lessons,  one  every  Tuesday  morning,  with 
Leopold  Ballman,  were  tiresome  unmusical  periods 
of  diaphragm  exercises  and  an  entire  tearing  down 
and  reconstruction  process  of  the  previous  methods 
taught  her.  It  was  tedious,  standing  before  the  long 
gold-and-black  pier  glass  in  the  front  parlor,  watch 
ing  the  tendinous  rise  and  fall  of  her  lower  thorax 
when  her  forbidden  arias  were  on  top  of  the  piano 
and  a  cabinet  of  Millie  du  Gass's  sheet  music  bulged 
there  at  her  disposal. 

The  old  disturbing  ache  would  climb  up  to  the 
back  of  her  neck,  and  her  half-baked  power  of  con 
centration  falter  at  the  arid  monotony  of,  breathe-in ; 
breathe-out. 

There  were  about  five  months  between  Lilly  and 
the  hour  of  her  supreme  travail.  They  might  have 


i8o  STAR  DUST 

been  five  years,  while  she  paused  suspended,  as  it 
were,  in  this  state  of  abeyance  that  hung  between 
the  hot  August  day  of  her  leave-taking  of  home  and 
that  chimeric  hour  ahead  which  depended  like  a 
stalactite,  stabbing  space. 

Her  most  tangible  concern  was  a  money  one. 
The  breaking  of  another  one-hundred-dollar  bill  was 
imminent  and  it  frightened  her.  She  reduced  her 
vocal  lessons,  at  three  dollars  the  hour,  to  one  every 
other  week,  finally  discontinuing  entirely,  and  took 
to  haunting  the  agencies  daily,  leaving  her  address 
where  no  initial  charges  were  required  and  scanning 
incessantly  the  want  advertisements  under  Amuse 
ments. 

She  applied  one  Monday  morning  at  the  Broadway 
Melody  Shop,  a  mere  aisle  wedged  between  a  theater 
and  a  rotisserie,  a  megaphone  inserted  through  a 
hole  cut  in  the  plate-glass  frontage  that  was  violently 
plastered  over  with  furiously  colored  copies  of  what 
purported  to  be  the  latest  song  hits:  "If  I  Could  Be 
Molasses  to  Your  Griddle  Cakes."  "Snuggle  Up, 
Snookums."  "Honey,  Does  You  Love  Me?" 
"Cakin'  the  Walk."  "It's  Twilight  on  the  Tiber." 
"Tu-Lips  for  Mine!" 

A  sort  of  managerial  salesman  in  a  number-thir- 
teen-and-a-half  collar  and  a  part  that  ran  through 
his  varnished -looking  hair  bisecting  the  back  of  his 
head  like  a  poodle's,  and  a  soft,  pimply  jowl  that 
had  never  borne  beard,  stuck  up  a  random  sheet  of 
music  on  the  piano,  so  placed  that  its  tones  carried 
straight  through  the  megaphone  to  the  sidewalk. 

She  played  and  sang  it  off  easily,  her  tones  jaunty 
and  staccato  and  her  desire  to  please  quivering  through 
them.  He  stood  beside  her,  the  angle  of  his  body  so 
that  the  sharp  bone  of  his  hip  pressed  against  her. 


STAR  DUST  181 

"Rag  up,"  he  said  once,  insinuating  the  movement 
with  a  slight  wriggle  that  ran  through  his  apparently 
rigid  body.  She  quickened  her  speed,  leaning  for 
ward  to  read  more  surely: 

"Uh-uh!  my  ba-a-aaby, 
You  drive  me  cra-azy, 
Uh-uh !  quit  shovin', 
I'm  only  lov — in'.'* 

The  words  running  along  to  a  stuttering  synco 
pation  that  filled  her  with  self -disgust  as  she  sang 
them.  But  she  finished  with  quite  a  flourish,  swing 
ing  around  on  the  stool  to  face  him. 

"You  need  ragging  up,  kiddo.  YouVe  the  speed 
of  a  funeral  march." 

"A  little  practice  is  what  I  need,"  she  said,  half 
hoping  to  obtain. 

"I'll  try  you  at  fifteen  a  week.  Eleven  to  six 
Tuesday,  Thursday,  and  Friday.  The  other  evenings 
we  close  at  eleven;  fifty  cents  extra  for  supper 
money.  You  on?" 

"Yes." 

"Slick,  ain't  you?  Who  peeled  you  to-day,  Miss 
Bermuda  Onion?  Aw,  touchy!  No  harm  meant. 
You're  too  big  to  suit  me ;  I  like  'em  squab  size.  Rag 
up  a  bit  between  now  and  to-morrow,  Miss  Onion." 

For  five  weeks  in  the  little  slit  of  store  that  was 
foul  with  tired  and  devitalized  air,  and  concealed 
behind  a  screen  that  shut  off  the  megaphone  device, 
Lilly  sang  through  an  eight  and  sometimes  a  twelve- 
hour  day,  her  voice  drifting  out  to  the  sidewalk  with 
a  remote  calling  quality. 

To  her  relief  she  quickly  learned  that  Mr.  Alphonse 
Rook— "Phonzie" — spent  the  greater  part  of  his 
time  at  the  office  of  the  Manhattan  Music  Publishing 


i82  STAR  DUST 

Company,  under  which  auspices  the  Broadway 
Melody  Shop  operated. 

He  was  replaced  by  a  salesgirl  of  such  superlative 
dress  and  manner  that  her  long  jet  earrings  were 
like  exclamations  at  the  audacity  of  her  personality. 
An  habitual  counter  line-up  of  Broadway  mental 
brevities  in  the  form  of  young  men  with  bamboo 
sticks  and  eyes  with  perpetual  ogles  in  them,  would 
while  away  the  syncopated  hours  with  her,  occasion 
ally  Lilly  emerging  from  behind  her  screen  to  "come 
up  for  air,"  as  Miss  Gertrude  Kirk  put  it. 

She  was  *Gert"  to  the  boys,  and  from  the  pro 
pinquity  of  that  sliver  of  store  and  the  natural  lo 
quacity  of  Miss  Kirk,  which  would  have  overflowed 
a  much  more  generous  area,  Lilly  was  to  learn  much 
of  life  as  it  is  lived  on  that  bias  which  is  cut  against 
the  warp  and  woof  of  society.  Miss  Kirk  had  twice 
been  up  in  night  court.  Her  mother  alternated 
under  three  aliases  and  was  best  known  on  the  night 
boat  that  plied  between  New  York  and  Albany. 
Occasionally  this  mother  visited  upon  her  daugh 
ter,  her  laughter  hitting  through  the  store  like  cym 
bals.  She  had  the  sagging  flesh  of  an  old  fowl  and 
cheeks  that  had  not  been  cleansed  of  rouge  long 
enough  for  the  pores  to  breathe  in  and  keep  the 
flesh  alive.  To  Lilly  she  was  as  terrible  as  a  plucked 
hen  on  a  butcher's  block,  with  her  head  dyed  to  a 
vicious  cock's-comb  red  and  the  wattles  of  loose  skin 
beneath  her  chin. 

In  fact,  she  was  familiarly  known  around  the  shop 
as  "old  bird,"  and  on  one  occasion  had  invited  Lilly 
for  a  Sunday  excursion  "up  to  Albany." 

"Lay  off,  ma,"  said  her  daughter.  "Per  Gossake, 
can't  you  take  a  tumble?" 

Miss  Kirk's  tongue  was  as  nimble  as  her  fingers. 


STAR  DUST  183 

She  used  them  both  lightly.  Would  tear  the  flounce 
off  her  too  lacy  petticoat  to  bind  up  a  messenger 
boy's  cut  finger,  and  no  scarf-pin  that  came  within 
three  feet  of  her  was  immune  from  her  quick  touch. 
The  only  hour  that  ever  struck  for  her  was  sex 
o'clock.  The  unmentionable  lay  mentioned  in  her 
discourse  so  frequently  that  to  Lilly  the  Broadway 
Melody  Shop  became  a  slimy-sided  vat,  horrible 
with  small-necked  young  men  with  flexible  canes 
and  Gertrude  Kirk's  slit-eyed  stare  of  calculation. 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  trying  to  put  over, 
Lilly-of -the-valley ;  you're  one  too  many  for  me. 
But  I'd  stake  my  life  on  one  thing." 

"What?" 

"You  got  a  caul  over  your  face." 

"A  what?" 

"Caul.  Sort  of  veil  some  get  born  with.  I  know 
a  girl  carried  hers  around  in  a  little  wooden  box  for 
luck.  Well,  you  got  that  white-veil  kind  of  look 
that  would  blacklist  you  for  the  Vestal  Virgin  Sex 
tet.  I  can  pick  'em  every  time.  You  look  to  me 
like — say,  I  got  a  little  mud  puddle  of  my  own  to 
play  in  without  wetting  my  feet  in  yours." 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking 
about,"  said  Lilly,  crashing  out  the  opening  bars  of 
"Oh,  Willie,  I  love  you  when  you're  silly." 

"No?"  said  Miss  Kirk,  the  slit -eyed  stare  of  ter 
rible  sophistication  narrowing  down  to  two  blade 
edges. 

That  night  Lilly  eyed  herself  in  all  the  plate-glass 
windows  as  she  walked  to  the  car.  She  was  straight 
as  a  lance,  but  before  she  went  to  bed  she  readjusted 
the  gathers  of  her  skirt  band,  pushing  them  forward. 

One  evening,  because  she  saw  it  in  the  window  of 
one  of  the  Amsterdam  Avenue  petty  shops,  she 


i84  STAR  DUST 

bought,'  furtively,  a  baby  dress  with  a  little  nursery 
legend  embroidered  on  the  yoke.  She  stole  home 
with  the  package  up  under  her  coat,  like  a  thief. 
Once  in  her  room,  she  laid  it  out  on  the  bed.  It  was 
as  tiny  as  the  French  apron  of  the  French  maid 
who  opens  the  play,  and  as  sheer.  She  wanted  sud 
denly  to  finger  it,  and  did,  laying  her  cheek  to  it 
with  a  rushing  sense  of  sweetness,  and  then  suddenly, 
on  wild  lashing  tears  of  her  resentment  and  terror, 
her  hands  tightening  into  and  wringing  it.  Dragging 
the  suitcase  out  from  beneath  her  bed,  she  crammed 
in  the  little  garment,  and  finally,  strapping  down  the 
lid  again,  laid  her  head  against  it,  silently  screaming 
her  despair. 

Strangely  enough,  that  very  night,  long  after  the 
street  noises  had  thinned  and  she  had  heard  Isaac 
Neugass,  creeping  up  from  the  drug  store,  drag  the 
bolt  across  the  apartment  door,  Lilly  sat  suddenly 
up  in  bed  out  of  a  hot  tossing  period  of  light  doze. 
She  was  often  crying  unconsciously  into  her  sleep 
these  nights,  so  that  her  eyes  were  tear-bitten  and 
dilated  into  the  darkness.  The  night  bell  that  con 
nected  from  the  drug  store  was  gouging  the  silence 
with  a  long-sustained  grilling.  Soft-soled  feet  were 
already  padding  down  the  hallway  past  her  door,  a 
bolt  withdrawn,  then  voices. 

The  grunty  tones  of  Mr.  Neugass  and  a  woman's 
fast  soprano  that  rose  and  rent  the  silence  like  the 
tear  of  silk.  More  feet  down  the  hallway ;  sobs  that 
were  filled  with  coughing;  Mrs.  Neugass,  pitched 
high  in  the  key  of  termagency;  the  faint,  expos- 
tulatory  voice  of  Alma  Neugass;  and  finally  one 
throat-torn  sob  that  grated  like  a  buzz  saw  against  the 
night  and  the  banging,  reverberating  slam  of  a  door. 

Barefooted,  trembling  in  the  chill,  Lilly  peered 


STAR  DUST  185    V 

out  into  the  hallway,  the  grotesque  procession  re 
turning  down  its  length.  Mr.  Neugass  bent  to  his 
tired  angle,  nightshirt  striking  him  midships  as  it 
were,  the  two  dim  white  women  creeping  after. 

"What  has  happened?" 

"It's  nodding,  Miss  Parlow.  It's  a  shame  for 
decent  beoble  they  should  have  to  listen.  Wash  your 
ears  out  of  it,  Alma,  and  go  back  to  bed." 

But  instead,  to  Lilly's  importuning  arm,  Miss 
Neugass  slid  into  her  room,  closing  the  door  softly 
behind  her,  standing  there  shivering  in  the  blue 
kind  of  darkness. 

"It's  the  old  story,"  she  said — "some  girl  in  a  fix 
and  trying  to  get  pa  to  help  her.  It  makes  me  sick, 
positively  sick." 

"Afix?" 

"Every  once  in  a  while  some  poor  creature  comes 
begging  pa  to  break  the  law  and  help  her.  It  gets 
him  wild.  Any  girl  who  doesn't  want  her  child  is 
a  monster  and  every  girl  in  trouble  a  vicious  sinner. 
This  poor  little  thing  didn't  look  seventeen;  I 
couldn't  quite  understand  her.  A  Pole,  I  think. 
Something  about  the  beach  at  Coney  Island.  A 
man  she'd  never  seen  before  or  since.  My  mother' 
in  her  righteousness!  Her  terrible,  untempted 
righteousness.  Her  easy  righteousness.  The  law 
in  its  righteousness.  It  can  be  just  as  wrong  and  * 
horrible  to  have  children  as  it  $an  be  sublime. 
What  right  has  that  little  underbred  girl  to  bring  an 
illegitimate  life  into  the  world  ?^  The  law  doesn't 
provide  for  the  illegitimate  child.  Why  should  it 
provide  for  its  birth?  What  right  had  my  father  to 
withhold  his  help  ?  .  .  .  There  are  worse  crimes  than 
taking  human  life;  0ne  of  them  is  to  give  life  under 
such  conditions."  v 


i86  STAR  DUST 

"You  mean,  Alma,  there's  a  way  not  to — a  way 
out?" 

"Why,  you  poor  baby!  Of  course  there  is  if  you 
see  to  it  in  time.  That  is,  during  the  first  few  weeks. ' ' 

"How— many?" 

"Oh,  five  or  six  at  the  outside.  Go  back  to  bed, 
girl;  you'll  catch  your  death.  O  Lordy!  such  is 
life!"  And  went  out. 

For  the  third  time  in  her  life,  Lilly  fainted  that 
night,  standing  shivering  in  her  nightdress  for  a 
second  after  Miss  Neugass  had  left.  In  a  room  barely 
wide  enough  to  contain  her  length  she  dropped  softly 
against  the  bed,  and,  her  fall  broken,  slid  the  re 
maining  distance  to  the  floor. 

After  a  while  the  chill  air  from  the  open  window 
revived  her  and  she  crept  shudderingly  into  bed. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

TWO  weeks  before  Christmas  such  a  gale  of  house- 
cleaning  swept  through  the  Neugass  apartment 
that  the  scoured  smell  of  pine-wood  floors  and  the 
scrubbed  taste  of  damp  matting  lurked  at  the  very- 
threshold. 

Then  one  Sunday  morning  Mile.  Millie  du  Gass 
and  maid,  also  Felix  G.  Auchinloss,  were  registered 
at  the  Waldorf. 

All  that  day  there  wound  into  Lilly's  room  the 
aroma  of  fowl  simmering  in  their  juices,  the  quick 
hither  and  thither  of  feet  down  the  hallway,  and 
later  the  whirring  of  an  ice-cream  freezer  and  the 
quick  fork-and-china  click  of  egg  whites  in  the 
beating.  For  days  she  had  hardly  glimpsed  the 
family,  except  as  they  passed  her  on  excited  little 
comings  and  goings,  and  always  package-laden.  A 
strip  of  new  hall  carpet  appeared,  Miss  Neugass 
nailing  it  down  one  night,  calling  out  short,  excited 
orders  through  a  mouthful  of  tacks.  The  piano  had 
been  tuned. 

A  sense  of  delicacy  kept  Lilly  to  her  room  that 
bright  cold  Sunday.  She  did  her  breathing  exercises; 
washed  out  some  handkerchiefs  and  stockings; 
tightened  the  buttons  on  a  pretty  new  brown  coat 
with  a  touch  of  modish  stone-martin  fur  at  the  collar 
which  she  had  purchased,  not  without  qualms,  for 
twenty-seven  dollars  and  a  half,  at  an  advertised 
sale. 

Then  for  two  long  immobile  hours  she  sat  with  her 
13 


i88  STAR  DUST 

cheeks  crumpled  into  her  palms,  staring  out  across 
the  sun-washed  roofs  and  roofs. 

At  noon  she  took  in  a  bottle  of  milk  from  the 
window  sill,  thawed  it,  slid  a  hatpin  along  the 
wrapping  of  a  new  tin  of  biscuit.  She  alternated 
between  bites  and  sips,  sitting  on  the  bed  edge,  her 
gaze  into  the  design  of  the  wall  paper. 

At  home  they  must  be  sitting  down  to  dinner,  her 
father  adjusting  his  napkin  by  the  patent  fasteners 
and  tilting  back  his  head  for  the  invariable  preamble 
of  throwing  the  contents  of  his  water  tjumbjer  down 
at  a  gulp.  Her  mother  in  the  hebdomadal  polka- 
dotted  foulard,  her  bangs  frizzed.  Albert  gnawing 
close  to  the  drumstick,  jaws  working. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  just  that  scene  was  at  just  that 
moment  in  its  enactment,  and  in  all  the  fullness  of 
her  intuition  she  now  knew  it  as  unerringly  as  if  it 
had  flowed  in  replica  to  her  through  time  and  space, 
etching  itself  in  dry  point  into  her  consciousness. 

How  often  and  with  uncanny  fidelity  to  fact  her 
retroactive  state  of  mind  had  guided  her  step  by 
step  over  the  site  of  the  domestic  disaster. 

Her  parents'  home,  reaching  around  like  an 
amoeba,  inclosing  Albert  in  living  walls.  The  slow 
readjustment,  dumfounded  rage,  and  despair  sim 
mering  gradually  to  bitterness  and  hardening  finally 
to  despair.  The  soft,  sensitive  ground  of  their  sorrow 
constantly  spongy  with  the  wellsprings  of  grief 
beneath,  but  the  surface  bubbles  showing  less  and 
less,  and  ultimately  a  hard  dryness  setting  in.  Her 
heart  would  hurt  as  tangibly  as  if  the  surface 
of  her  body  were  red  with  a  wound  from  it,  yet, 
sitting  there  at  her  milk  and  biscuit,  her  gaze  into 
the  monotonous  repetition  of  wall-paper  design,  the 
thought  of  that  Sunday  dinner  out  there,  with  its 


STAR  DUST  189 

invariable  roast  chicken,  bread  stuffing,  candied 
sweet  potatoes,  and  lemon-meringue  pie;  the  Sunday- 
afternoon  lethargy;  the  hypothenuse  of  her  father 
asleep  in  his  chair,  the  newspaper  over  his  face; 
Albert,  the  celluloid  toothpick  moving  along  his 
lips,  puttering  around  at  favorite  locks  and  bells; 
the  mere  visualization  was  such  a  fillip  to  her  present 
that  she  lay  back  on  the  bed,  stretching  her  arms 
and  legs  like  a  great,  luxurious  cat,  her  lips  curved 
to  a  smile. 

At  five  o'clock,  as  she  lazed  there,  Alma  Neugass 
burst  in  without  the  usual  scrupulously  observed 
preamble  of  a  knock.  There  were  two  round  spots 
of  color  out  on  her  long  cheeks,  and  her  white  cotton 
shirt  waist,  always  bearing  the  imprint  of  sleeve 
protectors,  was  replaced  by  a  dark-blue  silk  of  candy- 
stripe  plaid,  with  a  standing  collar  of  lace  that  fell 
in  a  jabot  down  the  front,  held  there  by  an  ivory 
hand  of  a  brooch.  There  was  something  of  the  mau 
soleum  about  poor  Alma,  the  grim  skeleton  of  her 
everyday  personality  finding  but  icy  warmth  be 
neath  the  ivory,  lace,  and  the  seldom-warn  black 
broadcloth  skirt  that  was  pinned  over  two  inches 
at  the  waistline  to  hold  it  up. 

"Did  you  think  I'd  forgotten  you?  I  haven't — 
but  it's  been  such  a  rush." 

She  sat  down  on  a  chair  edge,  pressing  a  bony 
hand  to  her  brow. 

"You  poor  thing,  you're  dead  tired." 

"  They  're  here,  you  know.  Docked  this  morning, 
almost  twenty-four  hours  ahead  of  schedule.  They 
— they  would  have  come  up  immediately,  but  cus 
toms  detained  them  three  hours.  They  are  at  the 
hotel  now  and  won't  be  up  until  supper.  It's  all  so 
confusing.  The  reporters  and  photographers  on 


igo  STAR  DUST 

their  trail.  He  won't  let  anyone  at  her  until  she's 
rested.  I  talked  to  him  over  the  telephone.  His 
voice  is — hairy." 

"I've  never  seen  you  look  so  nice,  Miss  Neugass." 

"If  I  stop  to  think,  I'll  scream." 

"Then  you  mustn't  stop,  dear." 

"You  should  see  my  father;  he  can't  sit  still.  I 
never  realized  how  little  and — old  he's  getting  until 
I  put  his  black  suit  on  him.  He's  so  full  of  pride 
he —  Oh,  what  a  mockery — for  him  to  dare  to  come 
here — home — with  her." 

"Miss  Neugass — this  is  not  the  time.    Not  now." 

A  cocaine  sort  of  courage  seemed  to  lock  her  face 
back  into  its  rather  nondescript  immobility. 

"You're  right,"  she  said.  "I'm  acting  like  a 
fool,"  and  rose.  "What  I  came  in  to  say,  get  into 
that  little  pink  dress  of  yours  about  nine-thirty  and 
I  may  be  able  to  manage  it  for  you  to-night.  Two 
minutes  of  his  time  may  mean  everything  to  you  and 
nothing  to  him." 

Lilly  flashed  to  her  feet. 

"To-night!" 

"Keep  your  head.  Sing  the  'Jewel  Song.'  It's 
always  a  good,  showy  standby.  Let  go — the  way  I 
heard  you  practice  the  other  Sunday  morning — and 
forget  that  it's  Auchinloss  or  anyone  else  listening 
to  you." 

"No,  no,  not  to-night,  Miss'Neugass.  I — I'm  not 
prepared.  It's  too  sudden." 

"It's  as  good  as  any  other  time.  Besides,  to-night 
we  have  him  here,  and  there  is  no  telling  when  we 
will  again.  This  isn't  what  you  would  call  the  ideal 
headquarters  for  a  pair  of  celebrities.  I  suppose,  if 
the  truth  is  known,  Millie  dreads  bringing  him  here 
at  all.  Besides,  they  leave  to-morrow  for  Boston, 


STAR  DUST  191 

and  with  the  line-up  of  entertainments  the  news 
papers  say  are  planned  for  them,  there  is  no  telling 
when  we  will  get  him  alone  again.*' 

"I'm  not  in  voice  these  days.  It's  all  roughened 
up  since  I'm  singing  downtown.  I — oh,  I'm  not 
ready  to-night,  Miss  Neugass." 

"Nonsense!  Don't  ask  Opportunity  to  wait  out 
side  when  he  knocks.  He  may  move  on  and  not 
return." 

"I — I'm  so  frightened.  I've  such — such  odds 
against  me — right  now.  What  if  he  only  rubs  his 
hands  and  says,  'very  nice'?  What  if — " 

"That's  where  you'll  have  to  swallow  your  medi 
cine.  After  all,  even  the  great  Auchinloss  represents 
only  one  man's  opinion." 

"But  his  judgment  has  proved  itself — time  and 
time  again." 

"That's  why  you  have  the  chance  to-night  that 
comes  once  in  a  lifetime.  Take  it." 

"I  will!" 


CHAPTER  XXII 

IT  was  just  before  midnight,  after  a  four-hour  period 
of  waiting  in  the  pink  mull  dress,  when  came  the 
summons  which  brought  Lilly  into  the  presence  of 
Felix  Auchinloss. 

Cramped  from  the  long  period  of  taut  waiting, 
she  was  so  dry  of  throat  that  in  spite  of  constantly 
sipped  water  she  could  only  gulp  her  reply  to  Miss 
Neugass's  knock  and  eagerly  inserted  head. 

" Quick!  He'll  hear  you  now  before  they  leave." 
She  followed  her,  without  a  word,  down  the  hall 
way  and  into  a  front  parlor  brilliant  with  the  full- 
flare  gas  jets,  a  bisque  angel  in  the  attitude  of  swing 
ing  dangling  from  the  chandelier,  and,  swimming  in 
the  dance,  a  circle  of  faces. 

"Miss  Parlow,  this  is  my  sister,  Millie  du  Gass." 
A  Greek  chorus  could  have  swayed  to  the  epiphany 
in  Millie's  voice. 

With  her  short  bush  of  curls,  little  aquiline  profile 
true  to  her  father's,  tilted  upward,  as  if  sniffing  the 
aerial  scent,  her  slender  figure  Parisienne  to  out- 
landishness,  the  stream  of  Millie's  ancestry  flowed 
through  the  tropics  of  her  very  exotic  personality. 
She  was  the  magnolia  on  the  family  tree,  the  bloom 
on  a  century  plant  that  was  heavy  with  its  first  bud. 
Even  at  this  time,  slightly  before  her  internationalism 
as  a  song  bird  was  to  carry  her  name  to  the  remote 
places  of  the  earth,  a  little  patina  of  sophistication 
had  set  in,  glazing  her  over  and  her  speech,  which 
carried  the  whir  of  three  acquired  languages. 


STAR  DUST  193 

"And  this  is  Doctor  Auchinloss.  I've  told  him 
about  you  and  your  eagerness  for  a  foothold.  He's 
going  to  give  you  a  little  home-made  audition. 
Will  you  hear  Miss  Parlow  now,  Doctor  Auchinloss?" 

The  face  of  Felix  Auchinloss,  also  to  become 
familiar  through  subsequent  years  of  American  dic 
tatorship,  seemed  by  the  hirsute  vagary  of  a  black 
beard  joining  up  via  sideburns  with  a  Pompadour  of 
sooty  black,  to  peer  through  a  porthole.  It  did  just 
that.  A  face  in  window  looking  out  with  very  quick 
perceptions  which  ruffled  it  not  at  all,  upon  a  world 
that  came  to  him  chiefly  through  two  channels,  his 
supernaturally  attuned  hearing  and  his  palate. 

He  could  detect  a  slurred  note  of  the  sixteenth 
violin  in  the  crash  of  a  ninety-piece  ensemble  of 
orchestration,  and  one-eighth-of-a-second  miscalcu 
lation  of  his  two-minute  egg  could  embroil  a  break 
fast  table.  A  creature  of  elbows  and  knees,  such  as 
a  chimpanzee  is,  the  backs  of  his  hands  were  hairy, 
but  the  eye  seldom  strayed  from  his  face.  It  knew 
its  Huxley,  that  face,  its  Hegel  and  its  Kant.  It 
loved  the  smoothness  of  young  girls'  bodies.  It  was 
attuned  to  the  music  of  the  spheres.  It  could  hold  in 
leash  the  outrageous  temperaments  that  reajponded 
to  his  baton  and  look  with  impassivity,  even  cruelty, 
upon  torture.  Mostly  the  torture  of  women.  Also 
it  could  brighten  out  of  its  imperturbability  at  the 
steaming  sight  of  a  dish  of  sauerbraten. 

There  had  been  no  sauerbraten  on  Mrs.  Neu- 
gass's  festive  board,  rather  fowl,  in  a  white  glue  of 
gravy  and  great  creamy  dumplings,  and  under  three 
helpings  and  the  steady  pour  of  an  extra  lager  the 
great  Auchinloss  had  expanded  and  expounded. 

His  glance,  still  warmed,  took  in  Lilly  at  a  sweep, 
finding  resting  place^at  the  swell  of  her  bosom. 


i94  STAR  DUST 

There  was  something  about  Lilly  as  she  stood 
thereof  the  winglike  smoothness  of  a  little  wild 
duck,  wet  from  a  skim  across  water.  A  slick  and  pale 
kind  of  beauty  which  ordinarily  held  little  appeal  for 
him  except  that  her  bosom  was  very  white.  Very, 
very  white,  he  thought. 

"Zoprano?"  he  asked,  his  gaze  still  beneath  her 
chin. 

"Lyric  soprano." 

"Om-m-m-m!"  After  the  manner  of  having  his 
doubts. 

"You  accompany  her,  Felix,"  said  Miss  du  Gass, 
not  unkindly  and  actually  with  an  intensive  kind  of 
eagerness,  as  if  for  the  diverting  of  his  interest. 

He  seated  himself  at  the  piano,  his  great  knees  at  a 
wide  stride,  hands  riding  down  the  keyboard  in  an 
avalanche  of  improvised  octaves. 

In  black  silk  that  stood  away  from  her,  Mrs. 
Neugass  sat  by,  not  releasing  hold  of  Millie's 
hand,  her  eyes  as  if  they  could  never  finish  their 
feast  of  her.  Her  timidity  forbade  her  much  that 
she  would  say,  and  so  she  sat  smilingly  silent  and 
held  the  little  ring-littered  hand,  stroked  it  and  lay 
it  to  her  cheek.  To  Lilly,  who  had  never  seen  her 
out  of  the  cotton-stuff  uniform  of  housewife,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  something  of  her  Old  Testament 
beauty  had  died  beneath  the  bunchy  jetted  taffeta 
that  brought  out  in  her  the  look  of  peasant — her 
husband  in  camphoric  broadcloth  suffering  the  same 
demotion. 

"Now  doan'  get  egcited,"  said  Mr.  Neugass, 
himself  shaken  of  voice.  "Remember  it  is  home 
folks." 

"She's  all  right,  pa,  if  you  don't  make  her  nerv 
ous,"  said  Miss  Neugass,  seating  herself  stiffly  on 


STA.l  DUST  195 

a  stiff  chair,  her  face,  as  the  evening  wore  on,  cold 
of  its  flush,  and  tired  rings  coming  out  beneath  her 
eyes. 

"What  do  you  prefer  to  sing?"  asked  Millie  du 
Gass,  again,  kindly. 

"The  'Jewel  Song/ " 

On  her  words  the  opening  bars  crashed  out,  and, 
to  Lilly's  consternation,  far  too  rapidly,  so  that  she 
ran  with  her  breath,  as  it  were,  for  the  opening  notes, 
lifting  to  it  nicely,  however,  and,  by  miracle,  quite 
at  her  truest. 

The  state  of  her  invariable  vocal  exultation  began 
to  mount,  her  consciousness  of  scene  to  recede,  and, 
anticipating  her  coloratura  climax,  she  started  to 
climb,  building  for  warble.  Her  blood  was  pounding 
and  her  voice  in  flight.  Up  went  her  chin.  It  was 
then  Felix  Auchinloss  swung  on  the  stool,  snipping 
off  the  song  like  a  thread,  his  face  in  its  window,  full 
of  a  new  impassivity,  and  this  time  his  eyes  off  some 
where  behind  Lilly's  left  ear. 

"That  is  verra  nize,"  he  said,  moving  restlessly 
about  the  room  as  if  to  throw  off  an  irksome  moment, 
and  then  winding  his  hands  and  winding  them,  "a 
pretty  voice  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  verra,  verra  nize." 

There  was  a  silence  that  seemed  to  wait,  and 
Millie  du  Gass,  her  laugh  like  glass  beads  falling  from 
a  snapped  chain: 

"You  must  come  down  to  the  hotel,  dear,  some 
day,  where  I've  a  concert  grand.  This  darling  old 
tin  pan !  You  should  have  seen,  Felix,  the  way  pops 
used  to  make  me  practice  on  it,  rapping  me  over  the 
knuckles.  You  old  darling  pops!" 

"Papa's  baby-la,"  he  said,  pinching  her  cheek. 

"If  you  will  excuse  me  now,  please,  I — won't 
intrude  any  longer." 


'196  STAR  DUST 

"Good  night,  dear;  it  was  just  lovely.  Good 
night,"  joined  in  everybody,  too  kindly. 

Walking  out  of  that  room,  Lilly  was  conscious 
suddenly  of  passing  through  a  prolonged  stare, 
especially  from  Mrs.  Neugass,  who  leaned  forward 
slightly  in  her  chair — a  stare  that  prompted  her  some 
how  to  quicken  her  departure  almost  to  a  run. 

Out  of  a  night  that  had  flowed  around  her  in  a 
bitter  sort  of  blackness  that  fairly  threatened  to 
drown  her,  she  floated  up  toward  morning  to  an 
exhausted  doze,  her  face  tear-lashed  and  her  breath 
ing  sucked  in  sobbily  as  she  slept. 

It  was  out  of  this  that  she  awoke  suddenly  to  a 
bombardment  of  knocks  at  her  door. 

"Come!"  she  cried,  sitting  up  rather  alarmedly  in 
bed,  and  holding  the  blanket  over  her  chest.  She 
was  lovely  and  disheveled  with  sleep,  her  whiteness 
whiter  because  of  the  most  delicately  darkened 
oyster  shells  beneath  her  eyes. 

It  was  Mrs.  Neugass.  She  was  pleasantly  shape 
less  again  in  cotton  stuff,  her  bosom  bulging  down 
and  over  the  jerked-in  apron  strings. 

"Wait,  I'll  get  up  and  close  the  window,  Mrs. 
Neugass!" 

"You  doan*  need  to,"  she  said,  slamming  down 
the  window  herself,  opening  the  floor  register,  and 
seating  herself  rigidly  on  the  chair  that  faced  the 
bed.  "I  want  a  little  talk  with  you,  blease." 

"Why,  yes,  Mrs.  Neugass!"  A  wave  of  memory 
and  a  sense  of  physical  misery  swept  over  Lilly  so 
that  it  was  difficult  for  her  to  force  the  smile.  But 
she  did,  sitting  up  in  bed  and  hugging  her  knees  with 
bare  shining  arms. 

With  nervousness  patent  in  every  move,    Mrs. 


STAR  DUST  197 

Neugass  sat  forward,  pleating  and  unpleating  a  little 
section  of  her  apron. 

"I  guess  you  know  it,  Miss  Lilly,  that  with  all  the 
honors  we  got  by  our  daughter,  we're  still  blain, 
respegtable  beoble." 

"Of  course—" 

"For  fifteen  years  in  one  business  in  one  neigh 
borhood  we've  such  a  standing  that  from  three 
blocks  around  they  come  to  my  husband  he  should 
keep  their  savings.  My  girls — I  can  say  it  on  a 
bible — more  than  anything  around  them  was  always 
respegtability." 

"But  why—" 

"If  I'm  mistaken,  Miss  Luella,  and  blease  God  I 
should  be,  then  excuse  me  for  a  foolish  old  woman, 
but  is — is  everything  all  right  with  you,  Miss 
Luella?" 

"Mrs.  Neugass,  I —    What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  took  you  in  for  a  student,  a  girl  alone  from  her 
home  town,  but  not  once  since  you're  with  us — I 
can't  help  it  I  got  eyes — so  much  as  a  postal  card. 
All  right,  I  said  time  and  time  again  to  my  husband, 
she  don't  have  friends  to  come  and  call  on  her,  be 
cause  she's  a  stranger  in  New  York.  Neither  did 
my  Millie  have  so  many  friends,  I  guess,  the  first 
few  weeks  in  Munich.  But  no  letters — not  a  line! 
I  know  goys  ain't  so  strong  on  family  ties,  but  once 
in  a  while  a  letter — " 

"I  don't  quite  see  where  the  matter  of  my  cor 
respondence  can  be  of  interest  to  you,  Mrs.  Neugass." 

"No,  but  it  is  of  interest  to  me  if  everything  is  all 
right  with  you.  If  everything  is  over  and  above- 
board,  as  the  saying  is,  Miss  Luella!" 

There  was  a  throb  to  the  silence,  as  she  sat  upright 
there  in  bed,  that  seemed  to  shape  itself  about  her 


198  STAR  DUST' 

like  a  trap.  She  buried  her  face  suddenly  into  her 
hands. 

Then  Mrs.  Neugass  rose,  edging  around  the  back 
of  her  chair  as  if  to  get  clear  of  even  propinquity. 

"I'm  right?"  she  cried,  hoarsely  and  rather 
coarsely.  "I'm  right,  then?  I  took  into  my  home  a 
bad  girl?" 

"No!— Not— No!— " 

Out  of  bed,  her  feet  hastily  into  slippers  and  fum 
bling  into  her  kimono  so  that  the  flow  of  her  hair 
went  down  inside  it,  Lilly  approached  Mrs.  Neugass, 
her  gesture  toward  her  and  entreating. 

"Mrs.  Neugass,  you're  horribly  wrong  in  what 
you  suspect.  You  must  listen  to  me — " 

"You  can  exblain  nothing  to  me  except  to  get  your 
clothes  packed.  How  it  goes  to  show  you  never  can 
tell  beoble  from  looks.  Even  my  husband,  who 
never  gets  deceived  in  human  nature,  *  She's  a  re 
fined,  intelligent  girl  to  have  around,'  he  says.  My 
stepdaughter!  A  girl  I  am  as  careful  with  as  if  she 
was  still  eighteen,  should  go  out  of  her  way  to  get 
you  before  Auchinloss!  No  wonder  he  says  it  you 
are  limited  and  that  you  fall  just  short  of  fine  talent. 
You  don't  deserve  it  no  better.  Ain't  you  ashamed? 
You  bad  girl,  you!  I'm  only  sorry  for  the  mother 
you  say  you  got — your  poor  mother!" 

"Mrs.  Neugass,  this  is  outrageous!  You  haven't 
the  right  to  speak  to  me  like  this!  It  was  wrong,  I 
admit,  to — to  deceive  you.  But  I  had  my  reasons — 
you  wouldn't  have  taken  me  in.  I'm  not  what — 
what  you  think  I  am!" 

"I  don't  care  what  you  are  and  what  you  ain't. 
I  only  want  you  to  pack  your  bags  and  go." 

"I  won't  go  until  you've  heard  me  out!" 

"We're  respegtable  beoble!" 


STAR  DUST  199 

r"Oh,  I  know,   Mrs.  Neugass,  your  kind  of  re 
spectability.    I  was  reared  on  it.    It's  the  cruelest 
respectability  in  the  world.    It  has  no  outlook  except     / 
through  the  narrow  little  bars  of  the  small  decencies  «/ 
you  have  erected  about  yourselves." 

"That  fine  talk  don't  save  a  girl's  skin  when  she's 
in  such  a  fix  like  you!" 

"I've  more  claims  to  your  precious  kind  of  re 
spectability  than  you — than  you  think!" 

"I  don't  think  no  more.  I  know!  I  don't  say  it's 
the  nicest  thing  I  should  have  looked  once  through 
your  things.  Even  then  I  must  have  felt  it  in  my 
bones.  That  little  dress  with  the  nursery  rhyme  on 
the  yoke — how  it  was  I  didn't  get  suspicious  then! 
All  of  a  sudden  last  night,  though — even  while  you 
was  singing,  it  come  over  me,  all  these  weeks  I  must 
have  been  blind." 

"I. tell  you  I'm  a  married  woman.  I  was  mar 
ried  last  July  in  the  Leffingwell  Rock  Church 
in  St. — in  a  city  I  don't  care  to  name.  I  sup 
pose  that  constitutes  me  a  moral  woman  in  your 
world  of  cautious  morality.  But  in  my  eyes  I'm  a 
moral  leper.  Not  because  I  did  not  marry,  but 
because  I  did.  Married  for  every  reason  in  the 
world  except  love.  No  marriage  ceremony  in  the 
world  can  condone  the  immorality  of  that!  Society 
may,  but  God  doesn't.  From  your  point  of  view, 
then,  I'm  a  respectable  woman.  From  mine,  I'm 
rotten." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  is  you're  talking  aboud. 
If  you  are  what  you  say  you  are,  what  does  it  mean 
living  around  in  decent  beoble's  houses  in  a  con 
dition  like  yours?  It's  an  insult  to  my  daughters 
you  should  be  here.  The  right  kind  of  a  married 
woman  don't  live  around  New  York  in  such  a 


200  STAR  DUST 

way  like  you.     There  is  something  very  crooked 
in  the  woodpile/* 

"If  that  is  what  bothers  you,  won't  you  please, 
dear  Mrs.  Neugass,  sit  down  and  let  me  tell  you  the 
whole  story?  I  need  you — " 

"The  whole  story,  Miss — Mrs.  Parlow — or  what 
ever  it  is  you  call  yourself — ain't  what  bothers  me. 
All  I  want  is  you  should  go  while  my  husband  is 
down  in  his  store  and  my  daughter  in  her  position. 
I  am  ashamed  they  should  know.  I'm  lucky  yet  I 
saved  myself  from  having  a  disgrace  in  the  house  a 
few  weeks  from  now." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Neugass,  be  careful!  You  may  have 
cause  some  day  to — " 

"A  singer  she  wants  to  be !  Is  it  any  wonder,  miss, 
you  got  no  luck?  A  girl  like  you  don't  deserve  it. 
I'm  sorry  enough  for  your  poor  mother.  Married  or 
no  married,  I  want  you  should  leave  here.  Quick, 
you  bad  girl,  you!  I'll  wait  outside  till  you  go." 

So  Lilly  was  subjected  to  the  bitter,  the  unspeak 
ably  vulgar  humiliation  of  gathering  her  belongings 
like  any  culprit  servant  girl,  cramming  them,  blind 
with  tears  and  frenzy,  into  the  suitcase  and  valise, 
tears  scalding  down  and  rolling  over  her  hands  as 
she  dressed. 

As  she  staggered  finally  down  the  hallway,  the 
two  bags  grating  the  walls  and  her  hat  awry  from 
haste,  Mrs.  Neugass  stood  at  the  door,  holding  it 
open. 

"Here,"  she  said,  "is  your  rent  back  for  four 
days—" 

"Don't  you  dare,  Mrs.  Neugass,  to  offer  me  that! 
Only  let  me  out,  please,  from  this  outrageous 
predicament." 

"You  got  righd.    It  is  a  outrageous  predicament. 


STAR  DUST  201 

Ach!  shame  on  you!  Such  a  fine,  clean-looking  girl 
like  you.  Indeed,  you  don't  got  to  ask  to  be  let  out 
twice." 

Thirty  minutes  later,  and  because  her  wildly 
beating  brain  could  figure  out  no  alternative,  Lilly 
sat  on  a  bench  in  the  waiting  room  of  the  Grand 
Central  Station,  bags  at  her  feet,  trying  to  subdue 
her  state  of  trembling. 

Eleven  o'clock  moved  around  largely  on  the  sta 
tion  clock.  She  was  due  at  the  Broadway  Melody 
Shop.  Still  she  sat  on,  the  palpitating  surface  of 
her  gradually  slowing  its  throb.  The  reverberating 
terminal,  then  at  the  excavating  state  of  its  gigantic 
reconstruction,  rang  to  the  crash  of  steel  with  the 
fantastic  echo  of  tunnel  and  of  blasting.  Its  con 
stant  conglomerate  of  footfalls  reduced  to  the  com 
mon  denominator  of  a  gigantic  shuffle,  it  swelled 
toward  the  noonday  schedule,  with  more  and  more 
rapid  comings  and  goings.  A  light  snow  was  announc 
ing  itself  in  little  white  powderings  across  overcoat 
shoulders  and  in  the  crevices  of  derbys. 

The  new  brown  coat  enveloped  her  warmly 
enough,  but  she  shivered  as  she  sat,  at  the  same  time 
committing  the  paradox  of  unbuttoning  and  flinging 
its  double-breastedness  away  from  the  beating  of  her 
very  being.  After  a  while  she  gave  over  her  bags  to 
the  obliging  eye  of  a  shawled  Polish  girl  on  the 
bench  beside  her  and  crossed  to  the  Information 
Bureau.  A  clerk  gave  her  precedence  over  two  men. 

Yes,  there  was  a  St.  Louis  train  out  at  two- 
five.  Another  at  six. 

She  returned  and  sat  in  the  midst  of  a  third 
bustling  hour.    A  young  woman  with  an  infant,  and ' 
a  whole  archipelago  of  luggage   surrounding  her, 
finally  replaced  the  Polish  girl.    She  was  as  fadely 


202  STAR  DUST 

and  straggily  pretty  as  a  doll  that  has  been  left 
lying  on  the  lawn  throughout  a  night  of  heavy  dews. 
Every  so  often  the  tiny  head  would  spring  back  from 
the  soft  fount  of  her  breasts,  a  cry  rising  thin  and 
spiral  as  smoke. 

"Sh-h-h,  baby!  He  won't  eat,"  she  said,  plain 
tively.  "It's  just  terrible;  we've  tried  everything 
and  he  won't  eat." 

Lilly  put  out  her  hand  toward  the  small  ball  of 
head,  but  withdrew  it. 

"Poor  little  baby!" 

"My  sister's  gone  to  the  matron  to  get  him  some 
barley  water  before  he  gets  on  the  train.  There  is  a 
grand  matron  here  at  the  station.  I  left  him  with 
her  all  morning  while  we  shopped,  and  he  never 
whimpered.  The  barley  water  was  her  idea.  He 
won't  eat.  It's  terrible.  He  'ain't  gained  in  six 
weeks.  The  doctor  says  we've  just  got  to  keep  trying 
until  we  hit  a  formula  that  agrees  with  him." 

' '  Formula  ?    How  funny !    Sounds  like  chemistry. ' ' 

The  young  mother  cast  a  commiserating  eye. 

"I'd  hate  to  tell  you  what  it  sounds  like  about  two 
p.x.  I've  been  on  a  visit  to  my  mother  in  Brooklyn, 
but  he  yelled  so  of  nights  the  whole  flat  was  kicking. 
You  ain't,  by  any  chance,  taking  the  two-five  St. 
Louis  Limited,  are  you?  Brazil,  Indiana,  is  mine." 

"I— don't  know— yet." 

"Ever  been  there?" 

"Where?" 

"Brazil." 

"I've  passed  through." 

"Some  dump,  believe  me.    I  keep  saying  to  him, 
'  Keep  me  out  here  much  longer,  Fred,  and  you'll 
have  to  ship  me  home  in  a  wooden  kimono.' ' 
,     "Wooden  kimono?" 


STAR  DUST  203 

"Coffin.    Get  me?" 

"Then  Brazil  isn't  your  home?" 

"By  transplanting,  yes.  I  never  married  out 
there,  believe  me.  We  was  both  born  and  raised 
right  here  on  the  little  long  and  narrow  island,  till 
he  got  a  better  job  out  there  with  the  telephone  com 
pany.  Believe  me,  I'll  take  my  little  old  fifteen  a, 
week  in  New  York  to  thirty  a  week  out  there,  bunga 
low  setting  thrown  in.  Bunk-a-low,  I  call  it." 

"But  isn't  it  better  for  the  baby?" 

"That's  right,  too.  I  always  say  to  my  twin,  I 
say,  ''Myrt,  if  you  don't  think  I  got  harder  hours  than 
when  I  worked  next  to  you  in  the  Five  and  Ten,  and 
no  pay  day,  neither,  just  trade  with  me  one  day  and 
take  care  of  the  kid  and  the  bunk-a-low.'  I  always 
say  to  Fred,  I  say,  'If  you  think  you're  dog  tired, 
fasten  a  speedometer  on  my  ankle  and  read  it  when 
you  come  home  nights  and  see  who's  taken  the  most 
steps.'  It's  hell,  anyways,  when  they  won't  eat  and 
you  can't  hit  the  right  formula." 

"Poor  baby!" 

"You  wouldn't  give  'em  up  after  you  got  'em, 
but  believe  me  it's  a  wise  girl  will  think  twice  before 
she  has  'em.  A  girl  gains  a  lot  by  marrying — maybe. 
But  believe  me,  she  gives  up  a  lot — sure." 

"But  you  married  the  right  man." 

"Yeh;  but  Nature  is  a  trickster.  How  you  going 
to  know  where  her  intentions  leave  off  her  and  your 
own  begin?  Fred  and  me  ran  off .  Regular  love  affair. 
I  suppose  I  am  one  of  them  that  picked  right;  right 
as  a  girl  with  my  disposition  could  ever  pick.  If  I 
hadn't,  believe  me,  eight  hours  for  me  behind  the 
counter  in  preference  to  eating  the  rest  of  my  break 
fasts  across  from  the  wrong  face.  Sh-h-h,  Freddie 

baby!    Can't  you  see  my  back  is  breaking?    Sh-h-h! 
14 


204  STAR  DUST 

Auntie  Myrt's  gone  to  nice  matron  for  barley  water. 
For  the  love  of  Mike,  sh-h-h!  or  mamma  11  spank." 

The  twin  fluttered  up  then,  a  vivid  italicized  proto 
type,  on  slim  tall  heels  that  clicked  and  a  very  small 
red  hat  set  just  at  the  angle  of  sauciness.  They 
moved  off  together  after  a  bickering  over  luggage, 
the  slim  silhouette  with  the  chin  sharply  flung  up 
and  the  accentuated  sway-back  figure  of  the  little 
rmother,  her  skirt  sagging  over  run-down  heels,  and, 
for  want  of  a  free  hand,  blowing  up  the  loose  strands 
of  hair  from  out  her  eyes. 

For  a  time  Lilly  sat  quite  intently,  her  gaze  on  a 
small  sign  that  hung  at  right  angles  from  an  open 
doorway,  "MATRON."  After  a  while  she  gathered 
up  her  luggage  and  walked  over,  entering  a  little 
room  fitted  up  with  the  efficient  and  institutional 
unprivacy  of  public  service.  On  a  couch,  her  face 
to  the  wall,  a  woman  in  a  traveling  duster  lay 
stretched,  hat  and  all,  in  an  attitude  of  exhaustion, 
a  young  girl  with  a  wayward  fling  of  posture,  sitting 
sullen  in  a  corner,  her  very  pointed  and  heeled  shoes 
toeing  in.  A  three-year-old  child  with  a  large  tag 
pinned  across  his  little  dress  played  with  railroad- 
owned  blocks;  the  matron,  a  sort  of  stout  Lachesis, 
with  a  string  of  keys  at  her  belt,  gray  with  years 
and  the  rather  sweet  tiredness  of  service,  sorted 
towels  at  a  rack.  It  was  to  her  that  Lilly  spun 
out  a  ready  tale,  reddening  as  she  talked,  but 
stanch  to  it. 

'Tm  from  Indianapolis.  I  want  a  quiet  place  for 
the  next  few  months.  Two,  to  be  exact." 

Sweeping  her  with  a  look.  "Are  you  in  any  kind 
of  difficulty?" 

"No — not  that!  I've  left  my  husband.  We 
agreed  to  separate.  I  want  a  few  weeks  of  quiet 


STAR  DUST  205 

until — afterward,  and  then  I  can  arrange  to  start 
out  on  my  own." 

"You're  too  nice  a  girl  to — " 

"I'm  not  asking  anything.  I  am  not  the  kind  you 
are  evidently  accustomed  to  deal  with  here.  It  is 
simply  that  I'm  strange.'* 

"Have  you  no  friends?" 

"None  with  whom  I  desire  to  communicate." 

"Well,"  doubtfully,  "there  is  the  Nonsectarian 
Home  for  Indigent  Girls  and  the  Hanna  Larchmont 
Lying-in  Hospital — " 

"Oh,"  cried  Lilly,  with  a  sting  of  color  to  her 
cheeks,  "you  don't  understand !  I  have  funds.  I  tell 
you  it  is  just  that  I  am  strange.  I  want  a  medium- 
priced  place  to  live  for  the  next  few  weeks,  where  it 
won't  be  embarrassing." 

The  matron  unlocked  a  drawer. 

"I  have  a  few  addresses  here  of  private  rooming 
houses  in  the  Hanna  Larchmont  Lying-in  Hospital 
and  Belle vue  districts,  if  that  is  what  you  want. 
Personally  inspected  places  that  can  be  recommended 
for  their  cleanliness  and  respectability." 

"That  is  exactly  what  I  need."      t 

"You  will  find  no  questions  asked  so  long  as  you 
conduct  yourself  quietly,  and  of  course  you  are 
expected  to  make  your  plans  for  leaving  well  in 
advance  of  any  emergency.  There  are  several  private 
sanitariums  in  the  neighborhood." 

"Of  course." 

"Here  are  three  addresses.  The  first  is  in  East 
Seventeenth  Street,  just  in  back  of  the  Hanna  Larch 
mont.  It's  a  very  nice  place  run  by  an  old  Irish 
woman  who  has  a  lace-curtain  establishment  in  the 
basement.  Here  are  two  others  on  the  same  block, 
in  case  she  has  rented  her  room." 


206  STAR  DUST 

"I'll  go  there  at  once,"  said  Lilly,  taking  the 
memorandum. 

"If  I  were  you  I  should  go  back  home  to  friends. 
It  is  too  bad  that  a  girl  like  you  should  find  herself 
in  this  position.  Won't  you  let  me  help  you?" 

" Thank  you" — lifting  her  bags  again — "you 
have  helped  me  a  great  deal." 

That  night  Lilly  slept  in  a  small  back  room,  two 
flights  up,  over  a  lace-curtain-cleaning  establishment. 
It  was  cruder  and  rougher  than  anything  she  had 
yet  encountered ;  a  white-pine  table  with  a  washbowl 
and  a  toothbrush  mug,  and  a  black  iron  bed  that  at 
first  glance  had  sent  darting  through  her  a  sinking 
sense  of  institution.  But  it  was  clean,  and  a  sparse 
Irish  landlady  with  a  moist  pink  presence  that 
steamed  hot  suds  had  left  her  without  question  and 
one  week's  advance  payment  tucked  into  her  bosom. 

Before  going  to  bed,  after  she  had  looked  under 
it  and  turned  out  the  gas  jet,  she  went  over  to  her 
single  window,  opening  it  wide  to  the  bite  of  a  winter's 
night  and  shooting  up  the  shade.  Her  view  was  again 
of  roofs  and  roofs  and  chimney  pots,  dirtier,  this 
time,  and  dingier,  and  marching  against  the  sky  line, 
like  a  dark  herd  of  buffalo,  a  long  range  of  buildings, 
blackened  of  bricks. 

It  was  the  Hanna  Larchmont  Lying-in  Hospital 
seen  from  the  rear. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

WHEN  Lilly  returned  to  the  Broadway  Melody 
Shop  that  morning  following,  there  was 
already  a  voice  driving  with  such  nasal  power  into 
the  sidewalk  din  that  she  hardly  needed  to  enter  to 
learn  of  her  successful  replacement. 

There  was  an  entirely  new  hauteur  incasing  Miss 
Kirk,  who  upon  her  entrance  wound  into  an  attitude. 

"Well!" 

"I  was  ill." 

"I— see." 

"I  guess  the  place  is  filled.    Oh,  it's  all  right!" 

"  Better  go  over  to  the  office  and  see  Phonzie 
about  it.  All  I  know  is  they  sent  over  a  pair  of  lungs 
that  can  stop  traffic  when  they  let  out.  Forty  copies 
of  'Cinderella  Ella*  just  like  hot  cakes  the  first 
time  she  telephones  it  out  to  'em !  Hauls  in  a  netful 
every  time  she  opens  her  mouth,  and,  some  mouth! 
'Phonzie/  I  telephones  over  to  him  this  morning, 
'thank  God  she's  screened  from  the  public  or  some 
body  would  buy  her  for  codfish  balls."' 

"Do  you  think  there  might  be  something  over  at 
the  office  for  me?  I've  had  some  training  for  desk 
work,  too." 

"Don't  know.  I  always  told  you  to  put  some 
nose  into  your  voice.  Let  out,  that's  what  triey  want 
in  this  business.  You  never  came  out  enough  from 
behind  your  tonsils.  The  refined  stuff  through  a 
megaphone  has  about  as  much  chance  as  a  violet  in 
the  six-o'clock  rush.  In  other  words,  dearie, ' '  finished 


208  STAR  DUST 

Miss  Kirk,  her  rather  close-set  eyes  focusing  upon 
the  tip  of  Lilly's  nose, ' '  I  think  you're  fired.  Canned, 
so  to  speak.  Replaced,  as  it  were." 

Lilly  laughed,  forcing  her  head  high  to  deny 
disconcertment. 

"Well,  anyway,  that  saves  me  the  trouble  of 
resigning." 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Kirk,  her  gaze  suddenly  long  and 
full  of  portent,  "I  wouldn't  be  surprised." 

To  Lilly's  heated  consciousness  the  grilling  quality 
in  that  gaze  was  so  unmistakable  that  it  plunged 
into  her  like  an  arrow.  She  walked  out,  stinging 
with  it. 

Hurrying  toward  the  music-publishing  office,  she 
caught  suddenly  her  reflection  in  the  plate-glass 
window  of  a  shop  devoted  to  Broadway's  intense 
interpretation  of  the  prevalent  in  modes.  She  stood, 
in  the  very  act  of  motion,  regarding  this  snapshot 
of  herself.  Then  she  entered,  emerging  presently  in 
a  full-length  dark-blue  cape  with  gilt  buttons  and 
little  pipings  of  red  along  the  edge.  It  was  neither 
so  warm  nor  so  durable  as  the  brown  coat,  and  cost 
her  the  rather  sickening  sensation  of  breaking  into  a 
hundred-dollar  bill  for  twelve  dollars  and  ninety- 
eight  cents. 

But  it  was  immensely  becoming,  this  flowing  wrap, 
enveloping  her  like  a  wimple,  her  face  rising  out  of 
it  as  clear  as  a  nun's.  Nevertheless,  it  was  her 
realization  of  need  for  it  that  quite  suddenly  ended 
her  quest.  She  turned  for  home,  stopping  at  the 
Public  Library  for  one  of  her  frequent  perusals  of  the 
St.  Louis  newspapers.  She  read  quickly,  her  eye 
skimming  the  obituary,  personal,  and  social  columns. 
For  a  week  there  had  daily  appeared  a  little  insertion 
which  invariably  caused  her  a  twist  of  heart: 


STAR  DUST  209 

To  Sublet:  Furnished.  Seven  rooms  and  bath.  Brand 
new  from  top  to  bottom.  Every  convenience.  Will  sell 
furnishings  if  desired.  Spacious  front  lawn.  Poultry  yard. 
5199  Page  Avenue.  Apply  5198  Page  Avenue. 

Then  one  day  it  disappeared  and  something 
lifted  from  Lilly's  heart.  This  time,  as  she  opened 
the  St.  Louis  paper  of  just  one  week  previous,  a 
small  oval  photograph  leaped  at  her  from  a  row 
of  them,  choking  her  as  if  it  had  clutched  at  her 
throat. 

In  a  full-page  advertisement,  Slocum-Hines  Hard 
ware  Company  announced  to  its  many  friends  a 
twenty-fifth  anniversary,  the  entire  sheet  bordered 
in  small  oval  photographs  of  the  personnel  of  valued 
employees. 

" Albert  Penny,  first-assistant  buyer."  Regarding 
it,  her  consciousness  of  his  promotion  was  secondary 
to  a  feeling  that  straight  lines  joining  the  four  corners 
of  Albert's  face  would  have  produced  almost  a  perfect 
rectangle.  A  little  farther  on  was  Vincent  Bankhead, 
buyer,  and  on  a  lower  row,  Ralph  Sluder,  with  whom 
she  had  graduated  from  grade  school. 

Strangely  enough,  in  this  very  edition  the  name  of 
Horace  Lindsley  sprang  out  at  her  from  the  tiniest 
of  type  in  the  marriage-license  column.  Horace 
Lindsley,  3345  Bell  Avenue.  Carol  Ingomar  Devine, 
3899  Westminster  Place.  The  name  of  the  bride 
was  associated  in  Lilly's  mind  with  the  society 
columns  of  the  Sunday  Post-Dispatch.  A  hundred 
little  pointed  darts  shot  through  her,  and  even  now 
the  old  sinking  but  delicious  sensation  of  too  sudden 
descent  in  an  elevator. 

That  night  she  went  to  bed  with  a  toothache,  a 
biting  little  spark  of  pain  that  toward  morning 
became  a  raging  flame  rushing  against  the  entire 


210  STAR  DUST 

inside  of  her  cheek.  She  could  not  trace  its  source, 
every  tooth  seeming  to  stampede. 

All  of  the  day  following  she  lay  with  her  face  buried 
into  her  pillow,  abandoning  herself  utterly  to  creature 
discomfort.  Toward  evening  she  ventured  down  as 
far  as  Fourteenth  Street  for  a  bowl  of  milk  and 
toast,  but  the  pain  raged  on,  tightening  her  throat 
against  food,  and  she  crept  back  to  the  haven  of  her 
cheek  to  Mrs.  McMurtrie's  scorched  pillow  slip. 

After  another  two  nights  of  local  application  and 
the  rather  futile  business  of  holding  warm  water  in 
the  sag  of  her  cheek,  she  found  out,  at  the  direction 
of  Mrs.  McMurtrie,  a  neighborhood  dentist  who 
occupied  a  suite  of  rooms  over  a  corner  drug  store, 
the  large  grinning  picture  of  a  boy,  with  a  delighted 
hiatus  of  missing  front  tooth,  painted  on  each  window 
and  giltly  inscribed,  "It  Didn't  Hurt  a  Bit." 

It  is  inconceivable,  except  that  under  duress  of 
great  pain  Lilly  could  have  engaged  services  so 
obviously  quasi  professional,  but  she  was  past  that 
perception  by  now,  her  nerves  from  brow  to  shoulder 
crackling  like  a  bonfire. 

Examination  by  a  dentist  with  gray  pointed  side 
whiskers  that  flared  and  brushed  her  cheek  un 
pleasantly,  revealed  a  pair  of  abscesses  gathering 
within  the  gum,  and  for  weeks  of  mornings  she  lay 
back  to  the  agony  of  steel  incisions,  for  the  remainder 
of  the  day  stretching  out  on  her  iron  bedstead,  face 
to  wall. 

Then  for  a  few  days  a  premature  spring  came  out 
teasingly.  The  East  Seventeenth  Street  block,  with 
its  rows  of  houses,  going  down  none  too  debonairly, 
from  gentility  to  senility,  showing  a  bud  here  and 
there.  There  even  remained  one  private  residence 
with  a  polished  door  bell  and  name  plate  and  a 


STAR  DUST  211 

little  cluster  of  crocuses  in  an  iron  jardiniere  set  out 
in  a  front  yard  about  the  dimension  of  an  army 
blanket. 

Crocuses,  whose  cold,  moist  smell,  with  all  the 
pungency  of  associations  an  odor  can  arouse,  some 
how  suggested,  to  Lilly,  Taylor  Avenue  and  little 
Harry  Calvert.  She  did  not  remember  it,  but  Harry 
had  once  stolen  two  satiny  red  ones  for  her  from  a 
Taylor  Avenue  flower  bed  and  been  soundly  cuffed 
by  a  housewife. 

A  block  away,  Gramercy  Park,  a  rectangle  of  the 
Knickerbocker  New  York  of  the  woodcut,  red-brick 
sidewalk,  salon  parlor,  and  crystal  chandelier,  was 
already  lacy  with  the  first  leafwork  of  spring. 
Several  times,  when  the  sun  lay  warmest,  Lilly 
ventured  into  its  Old  World  sobriety,  strolling  around 
the  tall  grill  fence  that  inclosed  the  park.  It  was 
locked  against  the  public,  nursemaids  from  surround 
ing  homes  and  a  few  old  ladies  stiff  with  gentility 
holding  keys.  Children  from  the  raggedy  fringe  of 
Third  Avenue  played  without  awareness,  against  the 
outside  of  the  iron  palings,  too  young,  and,  anyway, 
too  imprisoned  in  class,  to  resent  one  more  monopoly 
even  of  God's  sunshine  and  the  brown,  warm  earth 
already  swollen  with  life  about  to  be. 

It  seemed  to  Lilly  that  almost  any  of  these  mild 
days  Washington  Irving,  in  pot  hat  and  lace  in  his 
sleeves,  might  come  strolling  this  pompous  square. 
She  bought  a  manhandled  copy  of  Volume  I  of 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York  off  a  second 
hand  bookstall  one  day,  and  read  it  sitting  on  the 
sun-drenched  stoop  of  one  of  the  old  houses  whose 
eyeless  stare  and  boarded  windows  bespoke  one 
absent  family.  Off  this  same  stall  she  also  purchased 
a  volume  of  Wordsworth's  poems,  feeling  a  vague,  a 


2i2  STAR  DUST 

procreative,  and  who  shall  say  mistaken  need  for 
beauty.  Over  and  over  she  read,  milking  each  phrase 
dry: 

Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting. 
The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  elsewhere  had  its  setting  and  cometh  from  afar. 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness  and  not  in  utter  nakedness 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come  from  God  who  is  our 
home. 

She  read  of  daffodils  as  if  she  would  steep  her  soul 
in  the  sun  of  their  yellowness,  bought  some  one 
morning  and  propped  them  in  the  toothbrush  mug. 

She  practiced  her  shorthand,  too,  these  days,  in  a 
blank  book  bought  for  the  purpose,  sometimes  an 
hour — even  two  or  three — until  the  sun  receded  off 
the  stoop. 

Then  for  a  week  it  rained,  and  from  the  patch  of 
back  yard,  two  stories  beneath  her  window,  began 
to  mount  the  moist  smell  of  living  earth.  Beside  this 
open  window,  after  the  harrowing  mornings  of  den 
tistry,  with  a  soft  rain  falling  from  a  sky  swift  and 
low  with  clouds,  she  wrote,  her  pencil  dabbing  con 
stantly  at  the  well  of  her  tongue,  a  short  story  of 
some  six  thousand  words  composed  out  of  the  fabric 
of  an  idea  that  suddenly  presented  itself.  She 
copied  it  in  her  most  painstaking  handwriting,  on 
one  side  of  foolscap,  and  sent  it,  with  return  postage, 
to  a  popular  magazine. 

She  was  venturing  out  less  and  less,  preparing 
over  a  portable  oil  stove  her  own  breakfast,  and 
very  often  her  own  lunch  and  dinner.  She  tried  to 
sew,  too,  cutting  up  one  of  the  sheerest  and  pret 
tiest  of  her  nightgowns  into  a  litter  of  small  garments, 
but  almost  immediately  her  hands  would  fall  idle  and 
the  great  waves  of  terror  begin  to  surge. 


STAR  DUST  213 

Certain  inevitable  decisions  crept  closer.  She 
decided  against  the  Hanna  Larchmont  Hospital,  its 
very  foyer  awakening  in  her  such  a  sickening  sense 
of  public  institution  that  she  ventured  no  farther, 
but  engaged  a  tiny  room  in  a  private  sanitarium  in 
Nineteenth  Street,  at  twenty  dollars  a  week,  and  the 
privilege  of  boarding  on  two  or  three  weeks  after  her 
discharge. 

Her  bag  of  three  new  one-hundred-dollar  bills 
still  hung  in  all  its  reassuring  entirety  from  the  little 
pink  ribbon  about  her  neck,  but  the  confronting 
dentist's  bill  of  twenty-five  dollars,  and  the  slow  but 
acid  process  of  daily  expenditure  eating  into  the 
thirty  or  forty  dollars  left  in  her  purse,  lay  uncom 
fortably  against  her  consciousness. 

By  a  series  of  constantly  repeated  calculations, 
particularly  if  the  short  story  should  bring  in  even 
a  check  large  enough  to  cover  the  dentistry,  Lilly 
planned  to  span  the  weeks  of  her  narrowing  interval 
with  the  three  bills  intact,  but  pretty  shortly  the 
first  piece  of  mail  she  had  received  in  New  York 
arrived  in  a  long,  bulky  envelope: 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PARLOW, — Thank  you  for  submitting  the  ac 
companying  manuscript.  It  does  not  quite  get  across  in  this 
office,  but  it  is  near  enough  to  our  standard  for  us  to  want  to 
see  anything  more  you  may  care  to  submit. — THE  EDITOR. 

That  night  Lilly  cried  again  all  through  her  sleep, 
presenting  herself  next  morning  at  the  dentist's  with 
heavy,  rimmed  eyes.  It  was  her  final  visit,  and  before 
mounting  the  chair  she  laid  down  her  carefully 
counted-out  payment,  five  five-dollar  bills,  in  a  little 
pile  on  the  revolving  stand. 

Doctor  Hotchkiss,  with  the  offshoot  of  white 
whiskers  from  each  jowl,  and  who  was  fond  of 


2i4  STAR  DUST 

pinching  her  cheek  as  she  lay  under  his  touch, 
moistened  his  fingers  and  counted. 

"The  charges  are  fifty  dollars,"  he  said. 

She  was  immediately  startled. 

"Why,  Doctor  Hotchkiss,  you  said  twenty-five!" 

"Fifty,  with  the  bridgework,  my  dear  young 
woman,"  he  said,  the  words  swimming  in  the  oil  of 
his  suavity. 

"You  said  twenty-five." 

"You  misunderstood,  my  dear  young  woman. 
Twenty-five  would  not  pay  for  the  amount  of  gold 
I  used.  Fifty  is  what  I  said.  Fifty  dollars,"  his 
voice  rising. 

She  looked  her  despair. 

"I —  It's  not  honorable.  I  asked  you  distinctly. 
What  if  I  haven't  it  to  spare— 

"That  is  not  my  business,"  he  replied,  his  entire 
manner  roughening  up.  You  have  forty  dollars' 
worth  of  my  gold  in  your  mouth  and  the  law  provides 
for  receiving  goods  you  can't  pay  for.  You've  got  it, 
all  right,  and  if  you  haven't,  from  the  look  of  you, 
there  is  some  one  behind  you  who  has." 

She  colored  so  furiously  that  her  eyes  smarted  to 
tears  as  she  reached  down  into  her  blouse  for  the 
little  chamois  bag. 

"Give  me  fifty  dollars,"  she  said,  cramming  the 
five  five-dollar  bills  back  into  her  purse,  holding  a 
crisp  new  hundred-dollar  bill  out  to  him,  her  voice 
as  fluttering  as  a  broken  wing;  "but  nothing — 
nothing  will  ever  convince  me  that  you  have  not 
taken  advantage  of  me." 

He  counted  her  fifty  dollars  off  his  own  roll,  all 
the  more  suave. 

"You  will  find  you  have  made  a  mistake,  my  dear 
young  woman.  This  is  a  strictly  one-price  office. 


STAR  DUST  215 

Now  I  will  take  out  that  temporary  filling  and  finish 
you  up." 

She  was  loath  to  mount  the  chair,  except  that  the 
nerve  was  jumping  again.  For  half  an  hour  she  lay 
under  his  touch ;  finally,  as  he  fumbled  to  untie  the 
bib-like  towel  about  her  neck,  his  lips  descended  so 
close  to  her  cheek  that  she  could  feel  their  cold, 
liver-colored  caress  touch  her  finally  in  a  kiss.  She 
sprang  to  her  feet,  jerking  the  towel  away  from  her 
neck  and  rubbing  it  across  the  defiled  spot. 

"How  dare  you!  You  cheat!  You  miserable 
creature!  How  dare  you!  You  come  near  me  and 
I'll  call  the  police.  Let  me  out  of  here!  Out!" 

She  ran  from  the  place  with  her  hat  in  her  hand, 
across  the  street,  and  up  two  flights  to  her  room. 
Panting  and  drenched  with  perspiration,  all  day  she 
lay  on  the  little  iron  bed,  her  face  to  the  wall, 
shuddering. 

' '  O  God,  where  are  you  driving  me  ?  What  are  you 
driving  me  on  for?  Where?  Why?  What  does  it 
mean?" 

At  dusk,  with  a  sense  of  weakness  entirely  new  to 
her,  she  rose  to  undress,  resting  after  each  discarded 
piece  of  clothing. 

She  could  hear  Mrs.  McMurtrie  passing  through 
the  outer  hall,  a  tin  bucket,  on  one  of  its  frequent 
errands  to  Joe's  place  across  the  street,  grating 
against  the  wall.  The  room  took  on  a  deeper  and 
soupy  color  of  twilight,  the  great  pachyderm  of  the 
Hanna  Larchmont  Hospital  casting  its  shadow. 

Suddenly,  one  of  those  boltlike  perceptions  that 
can  spring  out  apparently  from  space,  Lilly  clapped 
her  hands  to  her  throat,  her  breast,  the  back  of  her 
neck.  Her  bag,  the  little  chamois  bag,  and  the  pink 


216  STAR  DUST 

ribbon  at  her  neck  were  gone !  She  shook  through  her 
clothing  in  a  frenzy  of  haste;  she  tore  each  piece 
inside  out;  slapped  her  hands  over  the  washstand; 
flung  back  her  mattress,  plunging  her  fingers  into 
every  imaginable  crevice.  Dragged  out  the  bed; 
jerked  up  the  tacks  from  the  carpet,  turning  back  the 
corners;  felt  along  the  dark,  narrow  halls  and  down 
two  flights  on  her  hands  and  knees;  shook  out  her 
clothing  again.  The  hair  came  down  over  her 
shoulders  and  her  reasoning  seemed  to  go. 

That  hand  fumbling  to  untie  that  bib-towel. 
Those  pointed  whiskers  approaching  her  cheek. 
The  little  pink  bow  at  her  neck.  Those  liverlike 
lips.  That  soft,  boneless  hand  at  the  back  of  her 
neck  had  jerked  out  the  bag!  O  God!  that  soft, 
slimy  kiss  and  the  little  jerk  of  the  bow  at  the  back 
of  her  neck!  and  fell  down  with  a  screaming  that 
bfought  Mrs.  McMurtrie. 

At  noon  of  the  next  day  Lilly  Penny  lay  in  the 
public  ward  of  the  Hanna  Larchmont  Lying-in 
Hospital,  a  premature  mother  by  some  weeks. 

Lily  Penny,  whose  trousseau  had  included  twelve 
of  the  sheerest  batiste  ones,  in  a  coarse,  unbleached 
nightdress  not  her  own  and  the  least  gentle  to  her 
flesh  she  had  ever  known. 

There  was  a  row  of  her  of  which  she  was  the 
whitest;  wan  women,  big-eyed  with  pain,  who  had 
gone  down  into  the  canons  of  death  that  there  might 
be  life. 

She  had  a  slow,  vagarious  notion  that  all  of  the 
cots  were  tilted,  so  that  they  appeared  each  on  a 
cross,  these  mothers.  It  was  sad  to  lie  there  in  that 
etheric  world,  yet  somehow  pleasant.  The  frieze  on 
the  auditorium  of  the  St.  Louis  Center  High  School 
was  unaccountably  before  her.  It  was  still  sown  with 


STAR  DUST  217 

lilies,  but  with  babies'  heads  for  calyxes.  Her 
mother,  her  teeth  set  with  effort,  was  scrubbing 
something.  A  window  sill?  Who  was  calling? 
Mamma — Flora.  You  wouldn't  give  'em  up  after 
you  got  'em,  but  it's  a  wise  girl  that  11  think  twice. 

She  felt  so  white.  Never,  in  fact,  had  she  enjoyed 
such  a  sense  of  her  whiteness.  She  held  up  her  arm 
to  regard  the  column  of  it,  and  wanted  to  laugh,  but 
it  was  easier  to  cry. 

They  brought  her  child.  Hers,  Lilly  Becker 
Penny's.  A  huge  tray  of  them,  like  a  vender's  street- 
corner  offering  of  spring  flowers.  Tiny  human 
blooms  with  a  tag  at  each  wrist.  Incredible! 

11  Three  guesses,"  said  the  nurse,  through  a  smile, 
and  held  out  the  human  bouquet  toward  her.  She 
could  scarcely  breathe.  She  wanted  to  scream,  to 
draw  up  the  sheet  over  her  head.  To  suffocate. 
Herself,  external  to  herself,  was  breathing  out  there 
— off  somewhere  in  that  tray.  She  tried  to  pull  up 
the  covers  over  her  head.  A  hand  would  draw  them 
away.  There  was  a  black  one  in  that  row  of  little 
pink  nubs  of  humanity!  Heads  like  hard-boiled 
eggs  not  quite  cooked  through.  No !  No !  No ! 

Suddenly  Lilly  raised  to  her  elbow.  The  second 
from  the  end !  The  big  head.  The  full-blown  spring- 
tight  curls !  The  color  of  honey.  The  blue  eyes  that 
were  almost  ready  to  turn  gray.  The  tag  on  the 
wrist.  Number  two.  The  tag  of  her  own  unbleached 
gown?  Number  two! 

"Give  me!"  cried  Lilly,  on  a  sudden  mounting 
note  that  left  a  little  resonance  like  a  plucked  violin 
string. 

"Right  the  first  time,"  cried  the  nurse,  lifting  the 
second  from  the  end,  "and  a  little  beauty  she  is." 

That  little  living  ball  of  head  in  the  crotch  of  her 


218  STAR  DUST 

arm !  She  leaned  forward  to  the  flameless  heat  of  it, 
her  lips  moving  and  wanting  to  speak. 

"What  is  it,  dear?"  asked  the  nurse. 

She  moved  them  again,  but  still  silently. 

The  nurse  bent  lower,  her  ear  to  the  pillow. 

"Now  what  is  it,  dear?    Say  it  again." 

This  time  through  the  veil  of  a  whisper  she  could 
hear  quite  clearly: 

"Zoe." 


Book  Two 
THE   GRAPE 


CHAPTER  I 

HTHERE  were  vagrant  little  streams  of  water, 
•••  released  by  thaw,  hurrying  along  against  the 
curbs  of  Second  Avenue,  the  absolutely  impeccable 
spring  day  that  Lilly  Penny  walked  out  of  the  Hanna 
Larchmont  Hospital  into  the  warm  scented  bath  of 
its  sunshine,  a  blanketed  bundle  in  the  crook  of  her 
arm  that  mysteriously  seemed  to  animate  the  nap 
of  the  wool,  lifting  it  and  suggesting  the  little  life  it 
enfolded. 

She  felt  strangely  light  and  giddy  that  life  could 
have  gone  clattering  on  outside  those  dim  weeks  of 
hers  inside  the  walls. 

She  had  gone  down  in  a  dark,  a  fantastic  hiatus  in 
her  scheme  of  things,  and  it  was  incredible  that  out 
here  were  street  cars  still  clanging  for  right  of  way, 
pedestrians  weaving  in  and  out  the  great  tapestry  of 
a  city  day,  factory  whistles  splitting  asunder  with 
terrific  cleavage  the  fore-  from  the  afternoon.  There 
was  a  hurdy-gurdy  rattling  tinnily  through  the 
morning  that  must  have  played  on  uninterruptedly 
through  this  strange  demise  of  hers. 

School  children,  the  air  raucous  with  them,  sped 
home  for  luncheon  through  streets  that  already 
smelled  of  sun  on  asphalt.  She  had  never  really 
noticed  them  before.  That  little  fat  girl  with  the 
braids.  How  pretty  to  loop  them  up  that  way  behind 
each  ear  with  bright  red  bows.  She  pressed  against 
the  little  warm  life  at  her  bosom.  She  felt  throaty 
with  laughter,  and  the  tears  of  a  delicious  weakness 


222  STAR  DUST 

that  made  her  ache  to  lie  down  somewhere  in  this  sun, 
close  to  the  soft  bearing  earth  whose  secret  she  knew 
now,  and  open  this  bundle.  Hers!  It  was  the  first 
moment  of  her  actual  ownership.  Reality  was  re 
claiming  her  from  that  unreal  realm  of  doctors 
and  nurses  and  the  dozy  detached  period  of  her 
convalescence. 

She  wanted  to  run  with  her  living  loot  to  some 
quiet  corner  and  open  it  up.  There  was  a  little 
square  of  park  with  a  municipal-laid-out  bed  of 
tulips  across  the  street,  but  its  benches  were  crowded 
with  humanity,  like  sparrows  sunning  themselves  on 
a  wire,  and  the  winding  of  its  asphalt  paths  swift 
with  the  hurry  of  all  the  strangely  uninterrupted 
world  outside. 

She  hurried  toward  Seventeenth  Street — could 
have  run,  in  fact,  such  a  resurgence  of  the  old  vitality 
was  upon  her.  Before  one  of  the  private  houses  a 
rheumatic^looking  oleander  was  in  the  supremest 
moment  of  its  full  bloom.  It  lit  up  the  old  street  as 
if  a  bride  had  donned  her  veil  there.  Outside  the 
cleaning  establishment  were  two  stretchers  of  lace 
curtains  sunning  themselves  against  the  wall. 

Lilly  hurried  up  the  stoop  and  pulled  out  the  bell 
that  rang  dimly  in  one  of  those  subterranean  retreats 
peculiar  to  landladies. 

Mrs.  McMurtrie  herself  opened  the  door,  as  usual 
her  great  hands  steaming  and  swollen  with  suds. 

"Well?"  she  said,  her  arm  immediately  flung  up 
to  the  virago's  akimbo  and  her  foot  sliding  in  between 
the  door. 

In  an  agony  of  anxiety  over  possible  exclusion, 
Lilly's  words  came  so  fast  they  hardly  allowed  for 
the  coherence  of  spacing. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  McMurtrie?    I've  returned 


STAR  DUST  223 

and  I'm  fine.  I'm  so  sorry  about  that — that  night 
and  the  trouble  I  must  have  caused  you.  Thank  you 
for  sending  my  bag  after  me.  It's  a  girl.  She's  the 
best  little  thing,  Mrs.  McMurtrie.  Doesn't  cry  at 
all.  I'll  only  be  wanting  her  with  me  for  a  few  days 
until  I  can  get  her  placed  somewhere  near  me,  so  I 
can  spend  evenings  and  Sundays  with  her.  I've 
such  plans!  I'm  ready  to  take  a  position  again  and 
forge  right  ahead.  If  I  might  have  the  old  room,  Mrs. 
McMurtrie,  I  promise  you  that  you  won't  know  she's 
in  the  house  these  few  days.  It  won't  mean  one 
thing  in  the  way  of  extras  for  you,  but  I'm  willing 
to  pay  more.  Nothing  except  a  little  alcohol  stove, 
and  if  your  little  girl  could  watch  her  for  an  hour  or 
two  once  in  a  while,  when  I'm  out,  I'll  pay  her,  too. 
Gladly.  My  bag  is  at  the  hospital.  I'll  send  for  it — " 

"Be  saving  your  breath,"  cried  Mrs.  McMurtrie, 
flinging  her  gesture  upward  with  a  cluck  of  the 
fingers.  * '  I  wouldn't  give  that  for  your  yarn !  You're 
a  hussy,  from  the  looks  of  the  whole  business,  and 
I've  a  mind  to  be  suing  the  railroad  station  for  the 
sending  of  you  to  me.  You  mentioned  the  husband 
of  your  own  free  will.  Your  husband!  Faith,  and 
not  so  r  iuch  as  a  relation  turning  up  to  be  with  you 
in  your  trouble.  Husband!  You'd  better  be  going 
and  teLing  that  to  the  'Home  for  Indigent  Girls. 
Your  husband!  Bah!" 

To  a  door  slammed  full  in  her  face  Lilly  stood  there 
for  a  ntunned  instant,  hugging  at  her  bundle.  She 
would  have  liked  to  crumple  up,  to  have  felt  the 
earth  open  and  drag  her  down  to  a  merciful  oblivion, 
but  after  a  while  she  turned  and  walked  down  those 
steps,  fumbling  with  her  free  hand  for  an  address 
she  had  applied  for  at  the  hospital  information  desk, 
against  possible  emergency. 


224  STAR  DUST 

The  slip  of  paper  read  Nineteenth  Street,  almost 
in  a  straight  line  from  where  she  stood.  It  was  a 
morose,  lean  building,  only  two  windows  wide  and 
five  stories  high,  with  a  porcelain  sign  above  the 
bell,  "ROOMS."  A  wrinkled  pod  of  a  woman 
opened  the  door. 

"I'm  looking  for  a  room  for  myself  alone  except 
for  a  few  days  until  I  get  my  baby  placed— 

"Nothing,"  answered  on  the  click  of  a  closed  door. 

With  her  lips  almost  ludicrously  lifted  to  stimulate 
the  crescent  of  a  smile,  Lilly  descended.  There 
were  passers-by  and  one  or  two  of  them  turned  for 
another  glance,  and  more  than  ever  she  kept  the 
smile  looped  up. 

Then  she  instituted  a  campaign  down  one  side 
and  up  the  other  of  two  blocks  of  Nineteenth  Street. 
Finally  there  came  a  whimper  from  the  depths  of 
the  blanket,  and  a  light  and  coughy  little  cry  against 
and  into  her  heart. 

She  stood  on  the  corner,  arguing  with  herself  for  a 
clear  brain,  the  easy  fatigue  of  weakness  beginning  to 
descend  and  a  queer  unsteadiness  of  limb  setting  in. 

"Don't  lose  your  head,  Lilly,"  she  admonished  of 
self.  "There  is  a  way,  only  you  haven't  ye  *  struck 
it.  Don't  let  your  brain  feel  trapped.  Koop  cool. 
Quiet.  Dove.  Peace.  Cathedral.  Sweet  and  low. 
Sweet  and  low.  Neugass.  No.  Gertrude  Kirk. 
No,  no!  If  only  Mrs.  McMurtrie —  Inligent 
Girls —  No — no — no ! ' ' 

However,  after  a  while  she  did  turn  back  through 
toward  Second  Avenue,  her  feet  quickened  with  a 
destination  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  admit,  and 
so  she  loitered,  inquiring  at  three  more  front  doors 
which  had  now  come  to  have  an  angry  scowl  for  her 
as  she  mounted  their  front  steps. 


STAR  DUST  225 

Between  a  Home  for  Lithuanian  Aged  and  a 
Swedish  bakery  and  lunch  room  that  she  had  more 
than  once  frequented,  a  black-and-gold  sign  spanned 
what  at  one  time  had  been  the  noncommittal  front 
of  a  stately  residence — "Nonsectarian  Home  for 
Indigent  Girls." 

Ascending  these  steps,  she  could  feel  the  glance  of 
every  passer-by  boring  into  the  very  back  of  her 
head,  awls  crawling  through  and  through  her.  She 
tried  to  drag  her  hat  down  over  her  eyes.  Her  black 
velvet  sailor,  modish  enough  when  new,  had  suffered 
somewhat  in  the  hurried  packing  off  of  her  things 
after  her.  The  buckram  rim,  misshapen  from  too 
close  quarters,  flared  rather  outlandishly  off  her  face, 
so  that  after  she  had  pulled  the  bell  she  stood  with 
her  back  to  the  sidewalk,  while  the  sign  above  seared 
into  her. 

Induced  by  the  warmth  of  the  day  and  the  bundle 
of  blanket  she  carried,  a  pox  of  perspiration  had 
burst  out  on  her  face,  but  the  little  whimperings 
against  her  heart  had  died  down  so  that  she  dared 
not  risk  the  jolt  of  reaching  for  her  handkerchief. 

She  was  admitted  finally  into  one  of  the  large 
salon  parlors  that  had  lost  its  beauty  as  a  woman  can 
lose  hers.  Stripped  of  the  jewels  of  crystal  chande 
liers,  long  mirrors,  and  glittering  floors,  it  remained 
now  a  gaunt  strip  of  room,  divided  by  a  low  fence 
and  swinging  gate  into  office  and  waiting  room. 

There  were  long  windows  that  looked  out  upon 
the  polyglot  of  Second  Avenue,  which  even  then, 
over  a  not  quite  abandoned  elegance,  was  donning 
its  Joseph's  coat  of  seventeen  nationalities  and  dining, 
bartering,  and  gesticulating  in  as  many  languages. 

On  a  strip  of  bench  between  the  windows  Lilly 
sat  and  waited. 


226  STAR  DUST 

The  movement  of  the  room  coagulated  about  the 
figure  of  a  woman  seated  at  a  desk  on  the  office  side 
of  the  partition,  Girls,  to  Lilly  it  seemed  a  whole 
phantasmagoria  of  identical  ones  with  short  hair  and 
eyes  none  too  young,  passed  in  and  out  of  the  little 
swinging  gate.  Suddenly  it  struck  her,  with  such  a 
wrench  that  she  almost  cried  out,  that  here  was  no 
illusion.  They  were  uniformed,  these  girls.  In  dark- 
blue  cotton  stuff,  with  three  rows  of  white  tape 
running  around  the  skirt  hem  and  white  bone  but 
tons  up  the  back.  Through  the  doorway  one  of 
them  was  washing  down  a  flight  of  stairs,  raising  a 
cold,  soap-and-lye  smell.  Another,  with  a  splay 
smile  that  was  terrible  as  a  wound,  wiped  in  and  out 
among  the  spokes  of  the  banisters,  her  face  as  without 
muscle  as  a  squeezed  orange,  and  smiling  without 
knowing  that  it  smiled. 

Sitting  there  with  her  bundle  closer  and  closer  to 
her  heart,  Lilly  closed  her  eyes  to  that  smile. 

Above  all,  she  knew  that  she  needed  to  keep  clear, 
and  yet  across  the  swept  horizon  she  tried  to  create, 
silhouettes  of  thought  such  as  these  would  move, 
fantastic  as  cloud  shapes. 

"Who  am  I?"  And  then,  with  her  old  untrained 
probing  after  reality:  "How  do  I  know  I  am  not 
dreaming  ?  Where  am  I  going  ?  Wliat  is  it  I  want  ? 
How  terrible!  Me,  Lilly  Becker.  This  place  is  like 
the  poorhouse  at  home,  that  time  the  High  School 
sociology  class  visited  it.  Zoe,  are  you  real  ?  Mine 
alone!  Not  his.  Mine.  You  must  be  the  miracle 
and  show  me  the  way,  Zoe.  You  shall  be  me  plus 
everything  that  I  am  not.  To  have  missed  the 
ecstasy  of  you  is  not  to  have  lived.  If  Auchinloss 
could  hear  me  now.  Who  knows?  I  may,  yet. 
What  if  I  am  like  Joan  of  Arc,  heeding  a  vision,  only 


STAR  DUST  227 

I  don't  know  which  way  the  vision  is  pointing. 
Funny.  Oh,  but  I'm  going  to  clear  the  way  for  you, 
Zoe.  No  Chinese  shoes  for  your  little  feet  or  your 
little  brain.  Free — to  choose — to  be!  That's  the 
way  I'll  rear  my  daughter.  My  daughter!  Queer 
I  never  think  of  him,  her  father.  Zoe — what  if  you 
don't  want  to  be  saved  from  what  I'm  saving  you. 
The  fatness — the  sedentary  spirit  of — out  there. 
But  you  are  me  plus  everything  that  I  am  not.  You 
will  want  to  be  saved.  You  will." 

It  was  out  of  this  limbo  that  Lilly  was  finally 
summoned,  through  the  little  swing  door  to  an  empty 
chair  beside  the  desk. 

She  thought  she  had  never  beheld  such  eyes  as 
were  turned  upon  her  through  polished  eyeglasses 
with  the  complement  of  a  wide  black-ribbon  guard. 
They  were  the  color  of  slate  and  cleaned  for  impres 
sion.  The  eight  cases  that  had  preceded  Lilly  were 
gone  from  them  just  as  the  eight  cases  to  follow 
would  erase  one  by  one. 

"Sit  down,"  she  said.    Then,  "Girl  or  boy?" 

"Girl." 

"Name?" 

"Zoe.  Oh,  you  mean  my  name?  Let  me  explain. 
You  must  understand  that  I  am  not — indigent.  I 
am  looking  for  a  room.  I've  just  come  out  of  the 
hospital  with  my  little  one,  and  you  have  no  idea 
how  difficult  it  is  to  find  lodging  where  there  is  a 
child." 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"I — I  must  beg  of  you  not  to — to  take  an  attitude 
toward — " 

"If  you  want  me  to  help  you,  my  dear,  you  must 
trust  me.  What  is  your  name?" 

"Lilly.    Your  files  won't  help  you.     I'm  not  on 


228  STAR  DUST 

record — that  way.  Lilly  Parlow  for  professional 
reasons,  but  I  want  her  christened  by  her  full  family 
name — " 

"What  is  your  family  name?" 

"Why,  Lilly— Becker— Penny." 

"Your  last  address?" 

"You  mean?" 

"Where  did  you  sleep  last  night?" 

"I  told  you.  Hanna  Larchmont  Hospital.  I 
received  my  discharge  to-day." 

' '  Is  the  father  of  your  child  your  lawful  husband  ? " 

"Indeed,  yes!" 

"Where  is  he?" 

"Out  West — where  I  came  from." 

"Exactly  where?" 

"D-d-denver,  I  think." 

"Why  are  you  here  and  he  there?" 

' '  Oh,  you  mustn't  question  me  like  this !  I  left  him 
of  my  own  free  will,  after  I  found  I  had  made  a 
jjiistake.  I  am  not  asking  anything  of  you.  I  can 
pay.  I  want  a  room  for  me  and  my  baby,  for  a  few 
days  until  I  get  her  placed.  I  can  make  certain 
arrangements  for  her  and  take  up  my  work  again." 

"What  is  your  work?" 

"I  am  a  singer." 

"Where  are  your  friends?" 

"I  have  none." 

"You  are  quite  sure  that  this  man  whom  you  call 
your  husband — " 

"I  won't  be  talked  to  in  that  tone." 

"Of  course,  you  realize  that  you  are  a  highly 
specialized  case." 

"Do  these  institutions  merely  function  as  ma 
chines?  Is  no  provision  made  for  the  exception? 
Rent  me  a  room  for  me  and  my  baby.  I  will  pay  you 


STAR  DUST  229 

in  advance.  See,  I  have  five  five-dollar  bills  in  my 
purse.  I  must  have  a  place  to  sleep  and  I  won't  leave 
here  unless  you  forcibly  eject  me.  I  must  have  my 
luggage;  it  is  still  at  the  hospital." 

"How  is  it  they  did  not  help  you  there  to  make 
further  provision  for — " 

"I  didn't  explain.  It  seemed  inconceivable  that 
I  could  not  find  immediately  lodgings." 

"I  see,"  said  Lilly's  interrogator,  with  the  air  of 
seeing  not  at  all.  "Your  case  does  not  come  under 
our  kind  of  jurisdiction.  Our  girls  are  unfortunate 
mothers  who  are  cared  for  here  until  such  time 
as  arrangements  can  be  made  to  place  the  child. 
But  no  girl  is  entitled  to  our  nursery  and  infirmary 
service  for  more  than  four  consecutive  weeks,  and 
then,  as  I  said,  only  in  the  event  of  unfortunate 
motherhood." 

' '  Can  only  the  unmarried  mother  be  unfortunate  ? " 

"I  hardly  care  to  discuss  with  you  the  wisdom  of 
our  policies." 

"But  you  must,"  cried  Lilly,  now  thoroughly 
beside  herself.  "What  about  the  girl  who  would 
rather  fight  out  her  own  destiny  than  live  through 
the  miserable  and  immoral — yes,  immoral — process 
of  a  marriage  that  she  realizes  has  been  a  mistake? 
Is  there  no  provision  for  the  woman  who  hasn't  a 
man-made  grievance  against  society?  Who  simply 
wants  her  one  -  hundred  -  per  -  cent  -  right  to  live? 
Women  are  coming  to  demand  it  more  and  more, 
that  right !  I  venture  to  say  that  ten  years  from  now 
they  will  be  voting  themselves  that  right.  Now 
we're  like  a  lot  of  half-hatched  chickens  pecking 
through  the  shell.  I've  pecked  through !  My  daugh 
ter  may  live  to  see  them  all  pecked  through."  vf 

"Really,  I  can't  see— " 


230  STAR  DUST 

"To-day  a  woman  on  her  own  with  a  child  has 
only  one  meaning.  I've  been  treated  like  a  leper. 
Suppose,  for  argument,  my  child  hadn't  had  a 
legitimate  father.  All  the  more  reason  a  hand  should 
have  been  held  out  to  us.  But  I'm  not  asking  any 
thing.  A  night's  lodging,  madam,  for  which  I  can 
pay.  Here  it  is  in  advance.  I'm  not  going  to 
leave!" 

The  child  was  whimpering  now  lustily  and  wanting 
to  lift  its  little  body  from  the  long  confinement  of 
wrappings.  There  were  tears  and  anger  and  a  bril 
liant  sort  of  challenge  in  Lilly's  voice  and  in  her 
glance  that  seemed  to  dart  and  glance  off  the  starchy 
shirt  waist  of  the  figure  behind  the  desk.  She  sat 
clicking  her  pencil  against  her  teeth,  eyes  averted, 
as  if  to  galvanize  herself  against  a  personality  that 
dared  to  intrude  itself  through  a  "case." 

She  openly  regarded  her  work,  this  Miss  Letitia 
Scullen,  who  was  one  day  to  lay  down  her  life 
valiantly  enough  at  the  altar  of  typhus  in  war- 
stricken  Rumania,  as  an  exact  science.  Indigency, 
like  typhus,  was  a  pandemic  which  must  ultimately 
respond  to  an  antitoxin.  It  was  as  if  her  forty- 
seven  charges  were  sick,  and  she  reading  the  blood 
test  of  indigency,  prescribing  in  toto. 

"If  you  are  what  you  say  you  are,  then  you  are 
not  entitled  to  the  benefits  of  this  home.  Our  girls 
here  receive  absolutely  collective  treatment  along 
lines  worked  out  for  their  general  needs.  Your 
case  is  an  isolated  one.  You  are  not  in  need." 

"But  please,  please,  please,  is  there  no  need 
except  that  covered  by  vice?  Can  you  not  conceive 
of  a  plight  being  all  the  worse  because  there  is  no 
provision  for  it?" 

"It  is  unthinkable  that  a  woman  like  you,  of  evi- 


STAR  DUST  231 

dent  refinement  and  education,  should  find  herself 
in  the  predicament  you  describe." 

"Then  thank  God  for  being  a  rebel,  if  it  will  make 
you  ponder  on  what  is  new,  untried,  and  not  accord 
ing  to  formula.  There  are  only  two  kinds  of  women 
you  social  workers  recognize.  The  sheltered  ones 
and  the  unfortunates.  What  about  the  woman  who 
is  neither,  but  merely  out  on  her  own  ?  I  try  to  meet 
life  as  an  individual  and  not  as  a  woman.  What 
happens?  Doors  slam  in  my  face.  I  can't  buy  a 
night's  lodging  for  the  child  in  my  arms.  It  sounds 
like  a  thirty-cent  melodrama.  And  now  you,  whose 
life  study  is  life — I  tell  you  I  won't  be  turned  off. 
You  must  take  me  in." 

"It's  very  irregular." 

"I'll  pay." 

"We. don't  accept  paying  inmates.  You  may 
make  the  institution  a  present  if  you  so  desire. 
I'll  put  you  up  in  the  infirmary — it  happens  to  be 
empty;  and  you  may  have  the  use  of  the  nursery 
equipment  adjoining,  and  there  is  a  practical  nurse 
in  the  house.  Understand  that  this  is  entirely  out 
side  the  regulations  of  the  institution  and  I  must 
ask  you  to  make  different  arrangements  as  soon  as 
possible." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Lilly,  ashamed  to  be  grateful 
and  the  tears  pressing  against  her  eyeballs.  "Oh, 
my  dear,  thank  you!  Thank  you!" 

And  so  it  came  about  that  in  a  room  of  five  white 
cots  and  three  barred  windows,  with  the  aid  of  a 
practical  nurse  and  a  tiny  gas  stove  on  a  tin  mat, 
Lilly  prepared  her  daughter  for  the  night. 

In  her  bag,  lugged  over  from  the  hospital  by  one 
of  the  uniformed  girls,  was  the  little  layout,  parting 
gift  of  the  institution,  including  a  machine-stitched 


232  STAR  DUST 

flannelet  nightdress  that  Lilly  could  have  wept  over 
as  she  fastened  the  thick  button  at  the  throat. 

Still,  with  the  chapped-faced  nurse  moving  about 
the  bare,  ugly  room  on  her  everlasting  mission  of 
efficiency,  diluting  the  formula  to  just  the  proportion 
required,  rubbing  the  little  bud  of  a  body  with  coarse 
cornstarch,  the  sense  of  ownership  did  not  descend 
upon  Lilly. 

She  wanted  to  feel  this  new  estate  of  hers.  In  all 
the  three  and  a  half  weeks  there  had  never  been  a 
moment  of  privacy,  to  give  reality  to  this  pink-and- 
blue-and-yellow  bloom  that  had  somehow  flowered 
from  the  tree  of  her  being. 

She  wanted  the  quiet  to  reconcile  this  new,  this 
terrible,  this  throat-throbbing  sweetness  with  the 
Medean  fury  which  had  flung  her,  a  shuddering, 
choking  mass  upon  that  rooming-house  floor.  She 
wanted  to  feel  again  and  again  the  quick,  ecstatic 
brash  that  could  race  in  a  wave  over  her  when  she 
held  this  warm  rose  of  life  to  her  breast. 

At  just  before  nine  there  was  a  wordless  round  of 
inspection  from  the  white  starched  shirt  waist  sur 
mounted  with  the  spectacles  and  the  black-ribbon 
guard,  a  final  look-in  from  the  nurse  whose  face  was 
Swedishly  blond  and  pink  from  chapping,  a  bottle  of 
milk  placed  in  the  small  refrigerator,  and  the  little 
bundle  on  the  pillow  covered  with  an  extra  thickness 
of  murky  blanket. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  lights  went  out  just  as  Lilly 
had  slid  into  her  own  gown.  She  tiptoed  to  the  door, 
barefooted,  locking  it  and  thereby  violating  a  rule 
of  the  institution.  There  must  have  been  a  moon 
somewhere  behind  housetops,  because  through  the 
three  shadeless  windows  a  sort  of  gleam  whitely 
powdered  the  silence. 


STAR  DUST  233 

She  was  suddenly  full  of  fear  there  in  the  darkness 
and  the  aloneness,  and  ran  over  to  the  cot  for  the 
miracle  of  that  soft  body  to  her  flesh.  She  lifted  it 
from  the  nest  of  coarse  pillow,  even  in  sleep  the 
tendril  of  a  little  ringer  closing  about  hers. 

There  were  crisscross  shadows  on  the  floor,  cast 
there  by  the  iron  bars  at  the  windows.  Her  child 
lay  asleep  in  an  institutional  garb  of  charity.  The 
father  of  that  child,  ignorant  of  its  very  existence, 
was  at  that  moment,  and  at  a  distance  of  one  thou 
sand  miles,  adjusting  a  new  rubber  stopper  to  the 
bathtub  in  the  home  he  shared  with  his  parents-in-law. 

On  one  of  the  empty  cots  the  rather  silly  silhouette 
of  Lilly's  hat,  its  buckram  rim  sadly  broken,  per 
sisted  through  the  gloom.  Her  shoes,  in  a  little 
attitude  of  waiting  beside  a  chair,  lopped  slightly 
of  a  tipsiness  induced  by  run-over  heels.  In  the 
jumble  of  changing  hands  the  black  valise  of  her 
underwear,  handkerchiefs,  and  baby  garments  had 
disappeared,  so  her  little  washed-out  chemise,  quite 
dainty,  hung  drying  over  a  table  edge. 

Outside  the  Home  for  Indigent  Girls  a  city  that 
took  absolutely  no  reckoning  of  Lilly  wove  its  pattern 
toward  another  to-morrow. 

She  was  alone  with  the  first  realization  of  her 
child,  in  a  moment  that  might  have  shaped  itself  to 
crush  her.  She  felt  a  throbbing  that  seemed  to  make 
a  rush  for  her  throat.  She  sat  down  on  the  bed, 
leaning  over  until  her  body  formed  a  sort  of  cave 
about  the  child.  She  had  a  sense  of  the  power  to 
strangle  both  their  lives  out  there  in  that  strange 
darkness.  An  old  fear  leaned  out  at  her. 

"Am  I  mad?" 

More  and  more  the  sense  of  wanting  to  strangle 
flowed  over  her. 


234  STAR  DUST 

1 '  Here — to-night — now !' ' 

A  cry  leaped  up  under  her  pressure,  startled,  and 
with  a  stab  of  pain  in  it. 

She  swooped  the  little  squirming  burden  up  under 
her  chin ;  she  buried  her  head  into  the  warm  froth  of 
curls,  the  light  wind  of  her  laughter  suddenly 
sweeping  the  room. 

" Mother's  darling!  Twiddle-de-darling.  Moon 
lit  flake!  Beautifulest.  Zoeist  flower  in  the  world. 
Mine  alone!  Alone  mine!  Oodle-de-dums.  To 
morrow!  To-morrow!" 

There  followed  for  Lilly  a  week  of  scars,  each 
exactly  as  deep  as  the  day  was  long. 

First,  the  heartbreaking  business  of  giving  over 
her  child  to  the  chappy-faced  nurse  and  a  rear  room 
of  nursery  hung  in  the  odors  of  formaldehyde  and 
lined  up  into  a  ward  of  white  iron  cribs,  each  screened 
in  with  a  clothes  horse  of  little  flannel  garments  of  a 
thickness  that  wrung  Lilly's  heart. 

There  were  now  two  additional  occupants — a  poor, 
top-heavy  infant  with  a  fourteen-year-old  mother, 
father  unknown,  and  the  teething  baby  of  one  of  the 
blue-uniformed  inmates  whose  routine  allowed  her 
periods  of  the  day  to  nurstle  her  child. 

That  was  the  wrench  that  began  each  day.  To 
abandon  the  pink-and-white  bloom  that  slept  all 
night  without  crying  in  the  cove  of  her  arm,  to 
the  grayness  of  a  nursery  that  should  have  been 
pink  and  white  and  sweetly  fragrant  with  powders 
and  puffs  and  the  rosy  kind  of  tufted  coverlets  with 
scent  between  them  that  her  mother  had  once  sewn 
over  with  bowknots  for  the  Kemble  baby. 

She  was  guilty  of  extravagances  that  ate  men 
acingly  into  the  four  remaining  five-dollar  bills. 


STAR  DUST  235 

Against  the  protests  of  the  practical  nurse  she 
promptly  discarded  the  long  muslin  swaddling  dress, 
whose  superfluous  length  wound  around  the  little 
feet,  purchasing  three  short  and  sheer  ones,  also  a 
doll-size  toilet  set  painted  in  little  clumps  of  forget- 
me-nots.  The  hair  brush  had  a  thick,  soft  nap 
which  would  spin  out  her  child's  curls  into  a  cloud 
of  gold.  They  really  were  the  color,  these  curls,  of  a 
jar  of  strained  honey  seen  through  sunlight.  It 
was  as  if  she  could  never  tire  of  feeling  them  wind  to 
her  ringer. 

The  nurse  she  kept  placated  with  tips  in  out 
landish  proportion  to  her  funds,  and  often  a  memory 
of  that  dip  of  lip  curving  terrifyingly  across  her  con 
sciousness  would  scurry  homeward  to  this  gray-and- 
black  abode  of  theirs,  which  only  contained  them 
on  a  tolerance  that  day  after  day  seared  deeply  into 
her  being. 

Slowly  but  surely  her  none  too  immaculately  shod 
feet  ceased  their  pilgrimages  to  the  agencies.  She 
did  apply  one  sultry  morning  in  answer  to  an  ad 
vertisement  for  a  "refined  indoor  entertainer,  city 
work,"  only  to  find  the  usual  fee  exhortation  thinly 
backed  by  promises.  For  the  most  part  she  marked 
off  at  her  breakfast  table  in  the  adjoining  Swedish 
lunch  room,  under  the  newspaper  heading,  "Help 
Wanted,  Female,"  the  demands  for  stenographers, 
companions,  hat  models,  and,  on  one  occasion,  for  a 
cashier's  vacancy  in  a  Madison  Avenue  florist's. 

A  persistent  streak  of  circumstances  seemed  to 
prohibit  her  success.  Upon  three  occasions  it  hap 
pened  that  she  waited  all  morning  in  a  line,  only  to 
see  the  applicant  directly  in  front  of  her  chosen  for 
the  position.  At  the  florist's  shop,  bond  was  re 
quired.  A  lawyer  in  the  Flatiron  Building  asked  her 

16 


236  STAR  DUST 

to  type  a  specimen  letter  for  him,  and  laid  heavy 
lips  on  the  curl  at  the  nape  of  her  neck  as  she  bent 
to  his  dictation.  R.  L.  Ginsburg,  of  the  Ginsburg- 
Flatow  Millinery  Company,  engaged  her  services,  and 
kissed  her  squarely  on  the  lips  to  seal  the  bargain. 

The  straight  line  of  those  lips  had  undeniably 
softened.  She  walked  about  with  them  usually  moist 
and  slightly  open,  and  the  arch  of  her  brows  very 
high.  She  had  softened  ineffably,  like  a  ripened 
fruit ;  was  more  liable  to  the  backward  glance  of  the 
passer-by. 

During  these  days  that  were  lifting  now,  each  its 
frankly  lashing  tail  of  terror,  there  were  smiles  all 
along  the  way  for  Lilly — old  faces  smiling  at  and 
young  faces  with  her,  often  to  the  assuagement  of 
the  tightening  knot  of  terror  at  her  heart. 

With  her  trick  of  mind  that  could  close  itself 
against  any  concern  beyond  her  immediate  future, 
her  one  burning  desire  was  for  a  competency,  to  be 
earned  preferably  at  stenography,  since  that  would 
leave  her  evenings  free,  and  which  would  tide  her 
over  these  first  weeks  of  difficult  readjustment.  To 
find  and  afford  for  this  amazing  liability  of  hers  the 
kind  of  temporary  asylum  that  would  set  her  free 
for  the  scheming  out  of  her  new  cosmos. 

She  found  out,  at  the  instance  of  the  practical 
nurse,  a  sort  of  semi-private  institution  on  Columbus 
Avenue,  but  a  trip  through  the  wards  and  nurseries 
sickened  her.  There  was  a  score  of  little  blue 
gingham  dresses,  dingy  fabrics  that  seemed  to  darken 
childhood,  flapping  on  a  rear  clothes  line,  and  one 
two-year-old  child  lay  asleep  on  a  step,  his  little 
white  frock,  with  black  anchors  printed  into  it, 
furiously  smeared,  and  one  hand  clutching  a  sticky 
gingersnap. 


STAR  DUST  237 

She  did  not  even  inquire  further,  but  got  out 
quickly,  trembling. 

The  proprietor  of  the  Swedish  bakery  gave  her  an 
address  of  a  Mrs.  Landman,  a  practical  nurse  who 
might  consent  to  board  the  infant  of  an  employed 
parent.  So  on  the  very  day  of  the  lawyer's  en 
counter  there  was  another  sickening  journey  to  what 
proved  to  be  a  tenement  in  West  Fifty-third  Street. 
The  newel  post  to  the  entrance  was  defaced  with 
obscene  handwriting,  the  hallways  were  like  cellars, 
and  there  was  a  sign  in  the  window,  "  Madam 
Landman,  Midwife." 

She  did  not  linger  to  ring  the  bell,  but  worked  her 
way  downtown  again,  toward  the  lawyer's  office  via 
the  florist's  establishment,  always  with  an  eye  to 
minimum  car  fare.  { 

That  night  she  lay  awake  the  night  through. 
Another  bed  in  the  infirmary  was  occupied.  One  of 
the  girls  had  spilled  scalding  tea  along  her  arm,  and 
all  night  to  her  groanings  Lilly  lay  staring  into  the 
darkness,  her  child  so  in  the  cove  of  her  arm  that  its 
slight  breathing  fanned  her  flesh. 

It  was  one  of  those  long,  calculating  nights  full  of 
alternatives  no  sooner  contrived  than  rejected. 
Only  one  state  of  surety  came  crystalline  out  of  it. 

There  was  no  going  back. 

Twice  she  rose  and,  with  much  of  her  old  revulsion 
curiously  gone,  greased  the  scalded  arm  by  the 
puny  aid  of  a  night  light  that  flowed  in  from  the 
hall  when  the  door  was  opened. 

At  five  o'clock  her  child  began  a  lusty  paean  to  the 
dawn.  She  heated  the  milk  and  held  the  warm 
bottle  tilted  until  it  was  emptied  with  the  strong, 
deep  draughts  that  delighted  her.  There  was  dis 
tinctly  more  gold  out  day  by  day  in  the  ringlets,  and 


238  STAR  DUST 

the  eyes  were  turning  gray  and  could  fill  blackly 
with  pupil. 

After  that  Lilly  sat  in  her  nightdress  beside  the 
window,  her  eagerness  for  the  day  allayed  to  an 
extent  by  her  rising  sense  of  panic.  She  tried  to 
lay  her  despair.  Unthinkable  that  this  new  day, 
dawning  so  pinkly  over  chimney  pots,  would  not 
prove  itself  a  friend  in  her  great  need.  By  eight- 
thirty,  at  the  instance  of  a  newspaper  advertisement, 
she  was  the  first  applicant  at  the  Acme  Publishing 
Company,  East  Twenty-third  Street,  a  narrow  five- 
story  building  with  ground-floor  offices  and  a  tremor 
through  it  from  the  champ  of  presses. 

She  obtained  this  time  from  a  woman  who  ac 
cepted  her  lack  of  reference  rather  negligibly. 

She,  too,  asked  her  to  compose  a  specimen  letter 
acknowledging  receipt  of  a  translator's  manuscript. 
She  accomplished  it  with  a  glibness  that  brought  a 
flush  to  her  cheek  and  a  smile  to  the  face  of  her 
employer. 

Lilly  thought  she  had  never  beheld  such  spick- 
and-span  efficiency  as  this  woman's.  The  smooth 
white  hair  arranged  with  a  conservative  eye  to  the 
prevailing  mode.  The  clean,  untired  skin  and  rather 
large,  able  hands.  She  made  mental  note  of  the 
crisp  organdie  collar  and  cuffs,  and  was  suddenly 
conscious  that  her  shoes  were  too  short  of  vamp,  and 
her  heels  run  down  because  they  were  too  high. 
A  revulsion  of  taste  flowed  over  Lilly;  she  hated 
suddenly  the  rather  tawdry  cape  piped  in  red, 
and  mentally  retailored  herself  with  a  new  feeling 
for  simplicity. 

Her  sinkage  of  heart  at  the  proffered  eight  dollars 
a  week  was  followed  by  a  quick  resurgence  of  vitality 
at  the  prospect  of  the  advancement  held  out. 


STAR  DUST  239 

Her  predecessor  was  being  promoted  to  first 
reader ! 

The  Paradise  Trail,  a  best  seller  of  the  moment, 
had  been  written  in  those  same  offices  during  spare 
moments  of  one  of  the  proof  readers. 

The  Acme  Publishing  Company  printed  paper 
back  editions  of  translations  from  the  more  highly 
papriked  of  current  French  novels.  The  instinct  to 
write  rose  in  Lilly,  the  quick  flame  of  her  faddism 
easily  aroused.  Here  was  nothing  more  than  a  stroke 
of  fate.  A  long-laid  plan  for  a  novel  lifted,  an  entire 
panorama  of  resolutions  dramatizing  themselves. 

The  easy  hours  from  nine  to  four.  Long  evenings 
at  work  beside  the'  crib.  A  nom  de  plume,  of  course 
— Ann  something.  Ann  Netherland.  But  eight 
dollars!  Her  heart  tightened. 

She  had  obtained,  the  day  previous,  at  a  Lexington 
Avenue  Children's  Hospital  she  chanced  to  pass, 
the  address  of  an  institution  at  Spuyten  Duyvil 
said  to  be  conducted  for  the  children  of  professional 
parents,  and  conducted  by  Minnie  Dupree,  an  old 
stock  actress  remembered  by  the  generation  pre 
ceding  Lilly's  for  the  heavier  Shakespearean  roles. 
Her  mind  leaped  to  this.  Yes,  she  would  return  at 
two  o'clock,  ready  to  begin  work,  and  went  out  into 
a  day  warm  with  sunshine. 

A  quick  resolve  formed  itself.  She  inquired  at 
some  length  in  a  corner  drug  store,  finally  taking  a 
train  for  Spuyten  Duyvil,  and  fifteen  minutes  later 
descended  to  a  little  station  upon  the  edge  of  a  park 
that  was  brilliant  with  new  green. 

More  inquiry,  the  disdaining  of  a  cab,  and  a 
twenty  minutes'  walk  along  curving  asphalt  walks 
with  houses  far  enough  back  to  lose  their  identities 
among  trees.  A  sense  of  summer  and  hope  swept  her. 


24o  STAR  DUST 

The  Dupree  place  was  an  old  homestead  of  painted 
gray  brick  and  ugly  with  the  millwork  and  gable 
bulging  wall  and  tower  of  American  architecture  in 
most  horrific  mood,  but  a  smooth  green  lawn  fell 
plushily  away  from  it  on  four  sides  and  it  was  all 
Lilly  could  do  to  keep  from  running  up  the  walk. 
Her  child  in  the  sweet  air  of  this  fine  old  spot !  Out 
of  her  eight  dollars  a  week  she  could  manage  four, 
even  five  if  need  be!  Her  embarrassment  was  only 
temporary.  Any  arrears  incurred  she  could  make  up 
later  if  only  it  could  be  arranged. 

There  were  long,  cool  halls,  a  sun-flooded  kinder 
garten,  an  open-air  playroom  on  the  roof,  and  a 
white-enameled  nursery  with  a  row  of  ducklings 
waddling  across  the  walls,  and  Mrs.  Dupree  herself, 
who  stopped  at  each  stair  landing  for  ready  and 
copious  explanation. 

She  was  very  corseted,  very  mannered,  and  quick 
to  attitudinize.  A  flight  of  framed  photographs  of 
her  followed  the  staircase  upward  step  by  step,  in 
which  she  registered  at  a  considerably  younger 
period  such  staple  states  as  Anger,  Meditation, 
Humiliation,  Vengeance,  Love. 

She  was  still  a  commanding  figure  with  copper- 
colored  hair  that  for  ten  years  had  wanted  to  turn 
gray,  a  face  of  furiously  combated  wrinkles,  and 
eyes  deep  with  black  or  blackened  lashes. 

She  was  the  declamatory  kind  of  Lady  Macbeth 
who  had  stepped  into  the  role  flatly  on  a  No.  7 
last,  rather  than  from  a  Juliette  who  had  fattened 
into  the  part ;  that  congenial  stateliness  now  thrown 
completely  out  of  plumb  by  a  violent  limp,  which, 
resulting  from  a  railway  accident,  threw  out  her 
entire  left  leg  as  she  walked. 

All  the  velvet  was  unconsciously  out  in  Lilly's 


STAR  DUST  241 

voice  coping  with  the  Dupree  extravagance  of 
manner. 

"Do  you  accept  them  as  young  as  four  weeks, 
Mrs.  Dupree?" 

"Bless  you,  dearie,  the  three  weeks'  duckie  darling 
of  Cissie  de  Veaux  is  our  youngest  at  present." 

"The  comic-opera  Cissie  de  Veaux?" 

"Why,  honey  child,  Cissie  tells  it  on  herself,  she 
never  would  have  had  those  ducky  twins  of  hers 
five  years  ago  if  she  hadn't  known  there  was  a 
Minnie  Dupree  Infantary.  That  is  our  aim,  here, 
you  know.  To  give  the  child  of  superior  professional 
parents  the  most  superior  environment  that  money 
can  buy." 

"  How  much— " 

"Elaine  Bringhouse,  daughter  of  Harold  Bring- 
house.  Ever  seen  him  in  'Hamlet'  ?  Before  your  time, 
I  guess!  Poor  Harold  in  his  day  was  the  best  all- 
around  Hamlet  in  the  country.  Cry!  I  wish  you 
could  have  seen  that  child's  father  cry  on  Elaine's 
fifth  birthday.  We  don't  keep  them  over  five  years 
of  age  here,  you  know.  Bless  her!  she's  in  a  road 
company  of '  Little  Miss  Muffet'  now.  Yes,  indeedy , 
dearie,  that's  a  book  of  testimonials  there  on  that 
table  from  my  children's  parents.  I  take  it  you're  a 
professional,  dearie?" 

"Oh  yes — yes.     Concert  and — vaudeville." 

"I'm  a  retired  member  of  the  profession  myself. 
A  little  before  your  time,  bless  you,  but  ask  anyone 
who  remembers  the  Manhattan  Stock  Company 
about  Minnie  Dupree.  Why,  I  played  Lady  Mac 
beth  opposite  Claude  Melrose  when  he  was  making 
thirty  dollars  a  week  in  Fredericksburg  Stock.  Did 
he  use  my  cutting  of  the  banquet  scene  all  those 
years  after  he  struck  Broadway?  He  did.  Did  he 


242  STAR  DUST 

give  credit  where  credit  was  due?  He  did  not.  Oh, 
my  dear,  I  could  tell  you  tales!  The  dirt  I've  had 
spun  me  in  my  day.  Maybe  Minnie  Dupree  never 
saw  Broadway,  but  dirt!  If  there  is  so  much  as  a 
speck  on  my  name,  God  strike  me  dead.  You  voice, 
dearie?" 

"Yes." 

"Ah,  voice!  Ask  anyone  who  knew  me  in  the 
Manhattan  Stock  if  they  remember  Minnie  Dupree  in 
' The  Silver  Lute.'  Donald  Deland  as  fine  a  Macbeth 
as  ever  strode  the  boards!  That's  his  picture  there 
as  lago.  I'll  show  you  his  little  grandchild  up  in 
the  nursery.  *Min,'  he  used  to  say,  'if  you'll  throw 
over  Edward  Dupree,  I'll  give  you  a  year's  voice 
training  at  the  academy  and  put  you  up  against 
Melba.'  Ah,  my  dear,  I  hope  yours  is  a  happy  one." 

"  How  much— " 

"I  threw  away  a  career  for  the  caprice  of  a  man 
who  cast  me  off  like  an  old  glove.  Be  careful,  dearie. 
Here  in  the  Infantary  we  never  ask  questions  of 
parents,  believing  it  the  right  of  everyone  to  work  it 
out  her  own  way,  but  look  twice  before  you  leap  in 
this  life,  dearie.  I  could  tell  you  tales!  The  dirt 
I've  been  spun!" 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Dupree,  what  a  sunny,  lovely  nursery! 
How  happy  I  would  be  if  my  little  girl  could  come  to 
you  here." 

"My  people  want  the  best,  dearie,  and  I  give  it 
to  them.  I've  put  the  last  ten  years  of  my  life,  since 
the  accident,  dearie,  to  making  this  home  one  the 
profession  can  be  proud  of.  My  nurses  and  doctors 
are  the  best.  We  only  accept  them  from  two  weeks 
of  age  to  five  years,  but  look  over  that  album  of 
testimonials — " 

"Oh,  this  bright,  lovely  nursery  is  sufficient — " 


STAR  DUST  243 

"  Look  at  that  one !  Ever  see  such  a  flower  ?  God 
love  it,  that's  Esther  Deland.  Her  mother's  playing 
Canada.  And  this  is  little  Sidonia  Vavasour — 
mother  out  in  one  of  the  highest-priced  sketches  in 
vaudeville.  Know  it?  'The  Snake.'  Every  morning 
that  God  sends  comes  her  good-morning  telegram 
to  this  little  mite,  just  as  regular  as  clockwork." 

"I  hope,  Mrs.  Dupree,  it  isn't  going  to  be  too 
expensive." 

' '  Our  service  divides  itself  into  three  classifications, 
Mrs. ?" 

"Penny." 

"Not  Alonzo  Penny  of  the  old  Trenton  Stock?" 

"No.  You  were  saying,  Mrs.  Dupree,  three 
classifications  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  I'll  give  you  a  booklet,  dearie.  The  rates 
vary  according  to  age.  Up  to  one,  then  one  to  three, 
and  three  to  five.  We've  our  own  cows,  sterilizing 
machines — ' ' 

"How  much  did  you  say,  Mrs.  Dupree,  up  to  one 
year?" 

' '  Six  hundred  dollars  a  year,  in  quarterly  advance 
payments." 

They  were  down  again  in  the  wide,  cool  hallway, 
little  kindergarten  voices  of  children  shrilling  through 
from  one  of  the  playrooms. 

A  white  nurse  passed  them,  tilting  a  white  peram 
bulator  down  a  flight  of  white  stone  stairs. 

"Six  hundred  dollars  a  year.  That — that  would 
make  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars — in  advance," 
said  Lilly,  trying  to  keep  the  muscles  of  her  face 
from  quivering. 

"Right,  dearie." 

1 ' I— why— I— I'm  afraid—" 

"No  hurry,  dearie.    Think  it  over.    It  just  happens 


244  STAR  DUST 

we  have  a  bed  on  the  infant  floor  right  now,  so  I'd 
make  up  my  mind  right  quickly  if  I  were  you.  Think 
it  over.  You  know  best." 

Out  on  the  sun-swept  lawn,  the  white  perambulator 
and  the  white  nurse  just  ahead,  Lilly  broke  into  a 
run.  Tears  were  beating  up  against  her  throat  and 
there  was  a  knot  of  sobs  behind  her  breathing.  She 
wanted  to  throw  herself  on  the  warm  slope  of  terrace 
and  kick  into  it.  That  vision  of  that  large  bone 
button  at  the  throat  of  that  little  muslin  nightgown 
somehow  became  the  symbol  of  all  her  misery! 

After  a  while  she  dropped  down  on  a  little  grassy 
knoll  just  off  the  curving  sidewalk,  and  leaned  her 
head  against  a  tree,  large  tears,  since  there  was  no 
one  to  see  them,  rolling  unheeded  down  her  cheeks 
toward  an  inverted  crescent  of  bitterly  disappointed 
mouth. 

The  sun  at  her  back  must  have  acted  as  a  sedative, 
because,  after  a  while  of  crying  there  tiredly,  she 
started  up  out  of  a  light  doze,  all  her  perceptions 
startled,  and  began  immediately  to  run  back  toward 
the  station.  Within  view  of  it  she  met  a  pedestrian, 
inquiring  of  him  the  time.  Ten  minutes  before  two ! 
This  set  her  to  running  again,  so  that  she  fairly  flopped 
with  a  little  collapse  on  a  station  bench.  A  train  was 
just  pulling  out.  There  was  another  at  two-twenty. 

It  was  ten  minutes  past  three  when  she  burst  into 
the  outer  offices  of  the  Acme  Publishing  Company, 
her  lips  trembling  with  a  prepared  apology  she  had 
hardly  the  breath  for. 

An  office  boy  brought  her  out  an  immediate  message. 
Her  place  had  been  filled  at  five  minutes  past  three. 

All  the  way  down  Second  Avenue  she  was  inclined 
somehow  to  laugh.  She  found  herself  finally  in  the 


- 


STAR  DUST  245 

Swedish  bakery  and  lunch  room,  ordering,  without 
appetite,  but  with  a  growing  sense  of  need  of  food,  a 
dish  of  rice  pudding  and  a  cup  of  coffee.  She  broke 
into  the  only  remaining  bill  in  her  pocket,  leaving  a 
five-cent  tip  beside  her  saucer,  and  pouring,  with 
quite  a  little  jangling,  one  dollar  and  eighty-five  cents 
back  into  her  purse. 

In  the  hallway  of  the  Home  she  encountered  Miss 
Scullen,  hurrying  with  a  sheaf  of  papers  in  her  hand. 

"Oh  yes,  Lilly,  I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

"Yes?" 

"Have  you  made  different  arrangements?  You 
know  it  is  highly  irregular  your  remaining  on." 

1  'I  am  expecting  to  take  a  position  and  get  baby 
placed  any  day  now,  Miss  Scullen.  I've  just  returned 
from  Spuyten  Duyvil,  where  I  have  something  very 
good  in  view.  If  you  could  see  your  way  clear  to 
let  things  run  on  a  few  days  longer,  Miss  Scullen?" 

"Not  beyond  next  Tuesday  evening.  It  is  very 
irregular  and  I've  a  board  of  directors'  meeting 
Wednesday." 

"Yes,  Miss  Scullen,  not  beyond  Tuesday  evening." 

When  Lilly  entered  the  infirmary  the  smell  of 
iodine  smote  her  queerly  and  with  an  unnamable 
terror.  Her  child  lay  sleeping  on  a  pillow  hedged  in 
with  a  chair,  and,  bending  over,  the  aroma  struck  her 
squarely  and  with  a  close  pungency.  There  was  a 
great  yellow  stain  on  the  little  forehead,  a  welt 
rising  and  purpling  through  it.  Even  the  honey- 
colored  curls  were  stained  with  a  great  blotch  of  the 
vicious  greeny  yellow,  one  little  eyelid  swelling. 

With  a  cry  somewhere  from  the  primordial  depths 
of  her,  Lilly  snatched  up  the  pillow,  rushing  with  it 
and  its  burden  to  the  door,  kicking  it  open  in  a  gale 

terror,  her  voice  tearing  down  the  hallway. 


246  STAR  DUST 

"Help!    For  God's  sake—-quick— help ! " 

The  nurse  came  rushing  with  a  stack  of  sheets  in 
her  arms,  and  in  an  instant  the  corridor  was  a  runway 
of  blue-clad  girls,  ready,  even  eager  for  stampede,  and 
finally  Miss  Scullen  herself  pushing  through. 

* '  My  baby !  What  has  happened  to  her !  Quick — 
my  child!" 

With  immediate  realization  of  the  situation,  the 
nurse  pushed  her  red-elbowed  way  through  the 
tightening  congestion,  her  voice  strident  above  the 
dreaded  hum  of  panic. 

* '  Get  back  to  your  room.  It  is  nothing.  The  child 
fell  off  the  bed  and  bumped  its  head.  Get  back,  every 
one  of  you.  I  painted  the  bruise  with  iodine.  It's 
nothing  but  a  bumped  head.  Back,  I  say!" 

There  was  a  blur  before  Lilly's  eyes  that  waved 
like  a  red  flag,  and  her  voice  shot  up  to  a  shriek. 

"You've  hurt  her  terribly!  You!  Devil!  Pig! 
How  dared  you !  You've  pinched  her !  too.  I  know 
now  what  those  little  blue  marks  are  from.  Her 
head !  Her  little  eye !  I  could  kill  you !  Devil !  Pig ! 
You  let  her  fall !  I  could  kill  you ! " 

Through  the  snarl  of  the  corridor  Miss  Scullen 
emerged,  her  lips  very  thin  and  her  voice  a  steady 
sedative  to  the  rising  murmur. 

"You  get  your  things  and  get  out!  Leave  the 
child,  if  you  want,  until  you  find  a  place,  but  you 
get  your  things.  You  thankless,  ungrateful  girl. 
You  were  taken  in  here  on  sufferance  and  against 
my  better  judgment.  This  is  the  reward  which  comes 
from  placing  myself  liable  to  censure  from  my  board 
of  directors.  Girls,  go  back  to  your  rooms  at  once 
and  forget  this  wayward  girl's  disgraceful  scene. 
Now  you  go!" 

"Indeed  I'll  go!    But  leave  my  baby  here?    Not 


STAR  DUST  247 

likely !  Why,  what's  one  baby's  brain  more  or  less 
to  you  ?  One  case  more  or  less  for  your  filing  cabinet, 
that's  all.  If  I  were  one  of  these  poor  girls  and  found 
myself  stuck  in  one  of  these  places  that  screams  out 
their  indigence  above  the  very  doorway,  dresses 
them  in  the  blue  calico  of  indigence,  and  then  seals 
and  stamps  indigence  all  over  them,  I'd  show  you 
what  real  indigence  is,  once  you  insisted  upon  stamp 
ing  me  with  it.  But  you're  not  going  to  make  an 
indigent  out  of  my  baby.  >  No,  you're  not !  No !  No  I 
No!" 

She  was  presently  marching  down  the  street  with 
her  head  high,  her  eyes  black  with  iris,  a  bag  in  one 
hand  and  the  bundle  of  her  child  clutched  under  her 
chin. 

She  did  not  heed  where  she  was  going,  but  as  she 
tramped  she  was  saying  audibly  over  and  over 
again : 

' '  My  baby.    My  baby.    My  baby. ' ' 


CHAPTER  II 

OHE  was  not  afraid.  The  blood  was  rocking  in  her 
+3  veins  like  a  sea,  and  she  was  raging  with  an 
anxiety  that  mounted  as  the  heliotrope  dusk,  turping 
out  sky  lines,  began  to  blow  in  like  fog  through  the 
narrowness  of  the  cross  streets. 

But  neither  was  she  alone.  That  was  the  miracle 
of  her  state.  That  peculiar  living  magnetism  was 
through  the  blanket  she  carried  and  in  a  current 
along  her  arm.  A  lusty  little  storm  of  crying  rose 
once,  quite  suddenly,  and  she  kissed  down  into  the 
pink  little  mouth  that  was  full  of  the  breath  of  life — 
her  life. 

There  were  three  bottles  of  still  warm  milk  in  her 
bag.  She  fumbled  for  one,  kneeling  right  there  on 
the  sidewalk,  jerking  out  the  stopper  with  her  teeth 
and  fitting  on  the  rubber  nipple.  The  little  lips 
closed  over  it  with  the  pull  and  strong  insuck  of 
breath  which  never  failed  to  thrill  her. 

She  was  sobering,  though,  slowly  and  surely  into  a 
state  of  panic.  At  Broadway  the  swirl  of  the  dinner- 
bound  was  already  tightening.  Lights  began  to  pop 
out  in  the  tall,  narrow  office  and  loft  buildings  of  the 
vertical  city. 

She  boarded  an  uptown  car,  counting,  and  truly 
enough,  upon  the  chivalry  of  the  mob  toward  her 
burden,  for  obtaining  an  immediate  seat.  At  West 
Fifty-third  Street  she  alighted  into  a  day  gone  two 
shades  darker.  A  stiffening  breeze  blew  in  from  the 
river,  whipping  up  the  odor  of  garbage  from  curbs. 


STAR  DUST  249 

group  of  dirty  children  were  building  a  bonfire 
of  some  of  these  slops  and  bits  of  flying  paper,  lending 
a  certain  vicious  redness  to  the  scene. 

She  thought  suddenly  of  Page  Avenue  at  this  hour 
of  pinkish  mist.  The  little  patch  of  front  porch 
with  the  green  chairs  and  tan-linen  covers. 

"O  God,  what  have  I  done!'* 

The  window  with  the  midwife's  sign  was  dark  and 
there  was  a  little  coagulation  of  bareheaded  women 
on  the  steps.  They  parted  to  give  her  passage,  their 
babel  immediately  resuming  after  her. 

The  hot,  sour  smells  of  the  hallway  smothered  her, 
but  she  fumbled  for  the  bell,  plunging  her  hand 
into  the  damp,  clinging  gauze  of  a  cobweb  that  sent 
her  back  shuddering.  What  proved  to  be  Mrs. 
Landman  herself  opened  the  door  upon  a  rushing 
smell  of  hops  and  a  cookery  and  a  glimpse  of  vio 
lently  disordered  interior.  It  was  not  so  much  the 
furiously  stained  figure  that  sent  Lilly  a  step  back 
ward,  but  a  black  flap  tied  over  one  eye  and  knotted 
at  the  back  of  her  head  struck  her  as  so  unutterably 
sinister  that  without  a  word  she  turned  and,  with 
her  head  charging  the  way  for  her,  ran  out  through 
the  hallway,  through  the  group  on  the  stoop,  and  the 
entire  length  of  the  block,  catching  a  downtown 
surface  car  that  stopped  for  her  after  it  had  started. 

She  was  palpitating  with  the  kind  of  fear  that 
gave  her  a  sense  of  fleeing  through  a  dark  corridor 
with  some  one  at  her  heels,  and  so  rode  on  until  her 
breath  caught  up  and  she  could  relax  into  a  grateful 
fvrf  nf  inertia. 

second  Street,  on  a  sudden  impulse,  she 
\  hurrying  into  Grand  Central  Station. 
,ss  of  semicompletion,  the  swirl  of  home 
sters  caught  her,  so  that  she  was  swept 


25o  STAR  DUST 

down  a  temporary  runway  and  shunted  finally  into 
the  waiting  room.  At  its  far  end  the  "  Matron  "  sign 
still  hung  at  right  angles.  She  hurried  to  it,  and  to 
her  relief  was  met  by  a  new  face  above  the  gray-and- 
white  uniform,  rather  little  and  old  and  framed 
kindly  in  white.  There  was  a  small  boy  asleep  on 
the  couch  this  time,  and  the  usual  frowsily  tired 
traveling  public  relaxed  against  various  of  the  chairs. 

* '  I  want  to  leave  my  baby  here  until  I  get  in  touch 
with  friends  who  have  failed  to  meet  me." 

A  quick  suspicion  of  foundling  crossed  the  old 
face. 

"We  don't  take  the  responsibility  of  infants." 

"But  this  is  urgent.  I  must  locate  my  friends  in 
Brooklyn.  I  cannot  find  them  in  the  telephone  book 
and  evidently  they  have  not  received  my  telegram." 

"We  don't  do  it." 

Then  Lilly  went  gallantly  down  to  her  last  handful 
of  change,  all  but  a  ten-cent  piece. 

"She's  the  best  little  thing.  Sleeps  the  night 
through.  I've  two  bottles  of  prepared  food  here  in 
my  bag.  Her  next  feeding  time  is  at  ten  and  her 
next  at  six — " 

"We  don't  keep  infants  for  nothing  like  that  long, 
madam.  I  go  off  duty  at  seven  and — " 

"I  haven't  any  intention  of  leaving  her  that  long, 
just  until  I  get  in  touch  with  my  friends." 

With  the  mound  of  change  ingratiated  into  the 
old  palm  and  the  little  bundle  transferred  to  arms 
more  or  less  reluctantly  held  out  for  it,  Lilly  lifted 
back  a  corner  of  the  blanket. 

"Wait  until  nice  lady  sees  mother's  beautiful, 
then  she'll  be  glad  to  watch  over  her." 

Mysteriously,  it  seemed  to  Lilly,  there  was  nothing 
of  the  button  nose  so  peculiar  to  infants  about  her 


STAR  DUST  251 

child.  Its  was  tipped  with  character;  so,  too,  the 
little  mouth  in  the  firm  way  it  had  of  closing. 

"Say,  but  ain't  she  a  beauty!"  capitulated  the 
matron. 

"Isn't  she!    Isn't  she!" 

"Look  at  them  curls.  You  ought  to  enter  her  in 
a  show,  ma'am." 

"You  will  see  to  her  carefully  until  I  return,  won't 
you?  She  sleeps  that  way  always,  sweetly  and 
deeply." 

"Why,  I'll  sit  and  rock  her  myself  this  very 
minute." 

When  Lilly  went  out  into  the  darkness  there  were 
the  ten  cents  in  her  bag  and  the  blurry  outline  of 
things  she  finally  laid  to  hunger.  She  walked  down 
ward  for  some  blocks,  finally  entering  a  Third  Avenue 
lunch  room  and  ordering  a  ten-cent  bowl  of  beef 
stew.  She  took  it  from  a  tablespoon  like  a  thick 
soup,  its  warmth  flowing  through  her  and  dissipating 
a  chilly  discomfort.  But  her  face  still  felt  rather 
drawn,  and,  regarding  herself  in  the  pink  net-draped 
mirror,  she  took  to  rubbing  her  cheeks,  an  old,  school 
girl  device  against  pallor.  She  was  quite  becomingly 
large-eyed  from  the  deadly  aching  tiredness  that  lay 
over  her,  but  otherwise  the  old  whiteness  of  her  skin 
flowed  unmarred  and  intact,  also  that  unadorned  look 
of  nun  to  her  face  where  the  hair  left  it  so  cleanly. 

Beside  her  at  one  of  the  marble-topped  tables  a 
great,  hefty  motorman  in  uniform  kept  finding  out 
her  knee  and  pressing  it. 

"Stop  it,"  she  said,  "or  I'll  call  the  proprietor." 

He  drew  surlily  back,  draining  his  thick  cup  of 
coffee  and  shambling  out,  chewing  a  toothpick. 
At  the  door  he  looked  back  with  his  lips  pulled 
down,  mouthing  a  filthy  epithet  at  her. 


252  STAR  DUST 

After  a  while  she  followed,  almost  slunk,  with  a 
sense  of  no  tip  left  beneath  the  saucer,  her  pace 
swinging  into  the  indefinable  tempo  of  destination, 
but  more  and  more  indeterminate  as  she  approached 
Madison  Square. 

She  kept  close  to  Third  Avenue,  something  reas 
suring  in  the  sidewalk  gabble,  the  air  of  cheap 
carnival,  the  white  arc  lights  over  open  fruit  stands, 
and  the  percussive  roar  of  Elevated  trains.  Presently 
even  Third  Avenue  would  withdraw  to  over  its  shops, 
the  sidewalks  fall  quiet  and  darken,  pedestrians  be 
come  sinister.  She  shivered  against  that  lateness; 
stood  for  a  period  outside  a  bird  store,  watching  a  pair 
of  Japanese  mice  chase  their  little  eternities  in  a 
wheel  cage.  At  Twenty-third  Street  a  youth  with  a 
prison  complexion,  a  cap  pulled  down  and  a  sweater 
pulled  up,  sauntered  out  of  a  pool  room,  matching 
his  pace  with  hers,  and  at  once  easily  colloquial. 

"Hello,  sweetness!" 

Her  eyebrows  shot  up.  She  could  smell,  feel,  and 
taste  the  cheap  beer  on  his  breath,  and  anger  rather 
than  fear  possessed  her. 

"Cat  got  your  tongue,  sweetness?  Where  you 
goin '  ?  Lonesome  ? ' ' 

After  a  while  he  fell  back,  flecked  off  as  it  were 
like  a  burr  clutching  for  a  metal  surface. 

It  was  her  conviction,  many  times  put  to  test, 
that  such  situations  lay  within  her  shaping,  and  that 
man  took  his  cue  from  the  yea  or  nay  of  her  attitude. 

At  the  sight  of  a  crowd  tightening  about  a  street 
corner  she  edged  her  way  in.  The  iron  plug  to  a 
corner  sewer  had  been  removed,  a  policeman  and 
the  shirt-sleeved  figure  of  a  man  prone  on  the  ground, 
red-faced  and  arms  inserted  their  length. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Lilly,  tiptoeing. 


STAR  DUST  253 

"A  feller's  gold  watch  rolled  down." 

"Who'll  go  down  on  a  rope?"  called  out  the 
owner. 

"I  will,"  cried  Lilly. 

The  crowd  turned  its  face  to  her. 

"I  will,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars — now — 
here!" 

In  the  derision  and  boo  that  went  up  she  escaped, 
hurrying  this  time  and  without  uncertainty. 

The  Union  Square  Family  Theater  showed  the 
lighted  but  quiet  front  of  a  performance  in  progress. 

At  the  stage  entrance  the  old  doorman  with  his 
look  of  sea  dog  recognized  her,  admitting  her  with 
a  nod.  The  titter  of  music  came  back  through  the 
wings  and  quick,  loud  thumps  of  a  tumbling  act  in 
progress.  The  smell  of  grease  paint,  like  the  flop  of 
a  cold,  wet  hand  to  her  face,  smote  her  with  a  famil 
iarity  out  of  all  proportion  to  her  limited  experience 
in  the  theater. 

She  wound,  unchallenged,  up  the  short  spiral 
staircase. 

Through  an  open  doorway  of  an  office  that  had 
been  refurnished  in  large  mahogany  desk,  filing  case, 
and  a  stack  of  sectional  bookcases,  Robert  Visigoth 
sat  tilted  on  a  swivel  chair,  his  hands  locked  at  the 
back  of  his  head,  gaze  and  cigar  toward  the  ceiling. 

She  stood  in  the  doorway  a  second,  watching  his 
perceptions  dawn. 

"Hel-lo!"  he  said,  finally,  uncrossing  a  knee  grown 
slightly  corpulent  and  his  rather  small  eyes  crinkling 
to  slits.  "Hel-lo!" 

She  was  arch  and  laughed  back. 

"A  bad  penny,  you  see." 

He  swung  a  chair  toward  her  without  rising. 

"Turned  up,  didn't  you?    Good." 


254  STAR  DUST 

She  seated  herself,  with  that  coquetry  of  hers 
which  she  could  force  on  occasion,  feeling  his  glance 
as  it  ran  over  her  dawning  shabbiness  as  searingly 
as  a  flame.  It  darted  on  downward  to  her  feet,  and 
because  that  very  day  the  leather  in  her  right  shoe 
had  cracked,  showing  a  grin  of  white  lining,  she 
wound  that  foot  up  around  the  chair  rung. 

"I  took  sick — that  time,"  she  explained,  fatuously. 

He  lifted  her  hand,  bending  back  each  finger  to 
match  his  words. 

* '  You  are  a  naughty  girl.   Why  did  you  run  away  ?' ' 

She  sat  swallowing  through  obvious  gulps,  but  in 
creasingly  determined  to  be  arch. 

"Please — don't,"  trying  to  withdraw  her  hand. 

"Come  now,"  he  said  through  a  half  smile  and 
watching  her  redden  almost  to  purple,  "you  don't 
hate  me  that  badly  or  you  wouldn't  be  back  here." 

"I  know  I  don't." 

"What?" 

"Hate  you." 

' '  Good !    Now  we're  getting  on. ' ' 

"I  need  something,  Mr.  Visigoth — terribly." 

"We're  not  using  that  song  specialty  any  more," 
he  said,  kindly. 

"I've  given  up  that  sort  of  thing,  too,  Mr.  Visigoth. 
I'm  a  stenographer  now." 

"Smartest  thing  you  ever  did." 

"I — I'm  in  a  little  difficulty  right  now — a  money 
one.  That's  why  I  thought  if  you —  Could  you 
use  me  in  the  office?  I  know  stenography  and  type 
writing.  I —  It  would  be  a  godsend,  Mr.  Visigoth. 
I  dislike  having  to  put  it  so  strongly — but  my  present 
difficulty  is  serious — very." 

"What's  troubling  you?" 

"I  must  have  an  office  position.     I  want  my 


STAR  DUST  255 

evenings  free  and  I  cannot  be  situated  so  that  I 
might  have  to  go  on  the  road  at  any  time.'* 

"Married?" 

"Why,  I — I  thought — assumed  that  you  knew  I 
was  married  from  the  beginning.  I —  We  aren't 
together,  though;  haven't  been — " 

"Umph!" 

"It's  just  that  I'm  temporarily  embarrassed." 

"That  was  a  pretty  rough  way  you  left  me  in  the 
lurch.  Those  actions  don't  get  a  girl  very  far  in  this 
business." 

' '  It  was  sickness." 

He  leaned  forward  to  pat  her  hand,  his  lids  some 
how  seeming  to  thicken. 

"You're  a  queer  little  duck,"  he  said,  "but  I  like 
you.  Always  have." 

"Then  you  will,  Mr.  Visigoth?" 

"Well,  let's  not  bother  about  that  now." 

"But—" 

"There  is  quite  a  change  taking  place  in  these 
offices.  My  brother  is  coming  from  Chicago  to  take 
charge  of  the  booking  end  and  I  am  going  out  there 
after  he  comes  on,  and  I'll  see  if  he  can  use  you.  Let 
us  talk  about  you  now." 

"No.  No.  I  haven't  made  you  understand. 
That  isn't  all.  I'm  in  immediate  need.  So  immedi 
ate!  I  need  as  much  as — as  a  hundred  and  fifty — 
two  hundred — here,  now,  to-night!" 

"Whew!" 

"It  is  so  difficult  to  explain,  but  if  you  would.  If 
you  could !  I  will  work  it  out  for  you,  beginning  to 
morrow  morning.  To  the  last  penny.  Two  hundred 
dollars  advance  on  any  salary  you  may  see  fit  to 
pay  me,  if  you  would!  I'm  not  afraid  to  start  small. 
Within  a  week  I'll  prove  my  value  to  you — that's 


256  STAR  DUST 

how  111  slave  for  advancement.  Just  two  hundred 
dollars  advance  on  my  salary — one  hundred  and 
fifty  if—" 

"Well,  well,  well,"  he  said,  stropping  up  and  down 
the  back  of  her  hand, '  *  that  does  put  a  different  face  on 
things,  doesn't  it?  I  just  don't  know  what  to  say." 

"Say  yes.  It  is  only  my  predicament  gives  me  the 
courage  to  ask.  But  I  need  money,  Mr.  Visigoth. 
Need  it.  *  Need  it.  Now — to-night!  I'll  pay  it  back 
in  service.  I — " 

"Come  now,"  he  said,  his  eyes  crinkling  again. 
"You  don't  mean  that,  Lilly.  I'm  a  man  and  you're 
a  woman.  I  don't  want  your  money." 

"I'll  go  any  length  for  yours." 

"What  length?" 

"Any — you  say." 

He  leaned  forward  at  that  and  kissed  down  into 
her  lips  so  deeply  that  her  neck  was  strained  back 
ward  to  hurting.  She  sprang  to  her  feet,  wiping  her 
hand  across  her  mouth  until  her  lips  dragged,  but 
trying  to  laugh. 

"You  hurt." 

"That's  what  I  want  to  do — hurt,  hurt,"  kissing 
down  into  and  crushing  her  lips  again  and  again. 

"Oh!  oh!  oh!"  she  moaned  rather  than  cried,  pum- 
meling  at  his  chest. 

"Devil,"  he  said,  jerking  her  back  to  him  until  the 
breath  jumped  from  her. 

"I— I  hate  you!" 

"Good!" 

"I'm  not  what  you  think  I  am.  I  hate  you.  I 
hate — sex.  I — ' ' 

"I  don't  care  what  I  think  you  are.  I  only  know 
that  I  want  to  be  the  one  to  wake  you  up  to  the 
knowledge  that  sex  is  life  and  life  is  sex.  Ice  maid. 


STAR  DUST  257 

I  don't  care  what  you  are.    I  know  that  I  like  you. 
I  know  that  I  like  your  lips.     Give  me." 

''Quick,  then,"  she  said,  trying  not  to  shudder. 

She  squirmed  from  him  finally,  pushing  against 
him  with  all  her  strength. 

' '  Ugh.     How  I— I— hate— " 

"Gad!  how  I  like  your  lips!" 

"Let  me  go  now." 

He  looked  down  at  her  through  slits  of  eyes. 

"To  the  last  cent,  you  said." 

"Yes." 

"Come,  then,"  he  said.    "I  live  alone." 

* '  Please, ' '  she  said,  her  palm  pat  against  her  mouth 
and  looking  at  him  with  streaming  eyes.  "  Please — 
not  that—" 

For  answer  he  kissed  her  again  so  brutally  that  she 
sat  down,  moaning  her  shame. 

"You're  a  woman  of  the  world,  Lilly.  You  don't 
want  anything  for  nothing.  Life  wouldn't  balance  up 
that  way." 

"But  I'll—" 

"Yes,  yes,  I'm  going  to  give  you  a  position,  too. 
Fifteen  a  week  to  start  with,  to  show  you  I  mean 
well  by  you.  You  beautiful  sleepy-eyed  thing!" 

"I'm  not  what  you  think — " 

"All  right,  I  know.  Never  again  after  to-night, 
so  help  me  God!  This  isn't  my  kind  of  thing  any 
more  than  it  is  yours.  Any  position  you  want  in  thus 
office  to-morrow  morning  and  me  off  to  Chicago  for 
permanent  headquarters  next  month.  I'm  good  pay. 
Are  you?  Now?  To-night?" 

"My  hundred  and  fifty—" 

'"Two  hundred!" 

"Yes — I'm  good  pay — now — to-night!" 


CHAPTER  III 

WITH  a  flaying  intensity  that  kept  her  teeth 
unconsciously  ground  together  so  that  when 
she   relaxed   their  pressure   the   gums  fairly   sang, 
Lilly  took  up  her  work  in  the  office  of  the  newly 
incorporated  Universal  Amusement  Enterprises. 

The  clerical  department  occupied  a  large  un 
finished  room,  obviously  makeshift,  that  had  pre 
viously  been  used  for  the  storage  of  stage  properties. 
There  were  two  flat-topped  desks,  placed  so  that 
their  swivel  chairs  faced  across  a  considerable  expanse 
of  surface,  two  bookkeepers'  perches  also  rigged  up 
to  meet  the  exigencies  of  run-away  affairs,  and  her 
own  little  table  with  its  brand-new  typewriting 
machine. 

Yet  Lilly  never  entered  the  rather  cold  breath  of 
this  atmosphere  without  a  sense  of  haven.  It  was 
as  if  she  had  turned  the  key  on  those  areas  that  lay 
outside  of  the  immediate  present.  She  could  take 
the  dictation  of  a  letter  to  the  printers,  or  a  manu 
facturer  of  slot  machines  for  opera  glasses,  or  to  a 
ventriloquist  guilty  of  disorderly  conduct  behind 
the  scenes,  with  the  whole  of  her  concentration 
bi 'ought  to  bear  upon  her  pencil  point  until  very  often 
it  snapped  under  the  nervousness  of  her  pressure. 

Then  Robert  Visigoth,  who  dictated  with  his  ten 
fingertips  together  to  form  a  little  chapel,  would 
invariably  wedge  a  pleasantry  into  her  tightly  main 
tained  attitude,  but  there  was  a  freshly  sharpened 
pencil  always  at  hand  in  the  little  patch  of  shirt- 


STAR  DUST  259 

waist  pocket,  so  that  even  this  slight  schism  was 
seldom  accomplished. 

Her  work  consisted  of  some  correspondence, 
mimeographing  of  programs  for  distribution  to 
orchestra  leaders,  scene  shifters,  printers,  book 
keeping  and  publicity  department.  Quite  a  bit  of 
communication  by  wire,  letter,  and  telephone  with 
the  Chicago  office,  and  upon  one  very  recent  occasion 
she  had  been  summoned  down  to  the  auditorium 
together  with  a  Mrs.  Ida  Blair,  one  of  the  book 
keepers,  for  the  try-out  performance  of  a  sketch, 
with  the  request  for  a  written  opinion  on  its  box- 
office  value. 

Lilly  alone  had  sent  in  a  negative  report — "Too 
sophisticated  and  not  sufficient  emotional  appeal  for 
vaudeville."  On  the  strength  of  several  opposing 
yeas,  the  playlet  was  booked,  and  removed  after  the 
second  performance — a  little  secret  feather  which 
Lilly  wore  jauntily  on  a  little  secret  cap. 

In  these  eight  weeks  a  quiescence  that  was  like  a 
hand  to  the  reverberating  parchment  of  a  drum  had 
come  over  her.  It  was,  in  fact,  as  if  the  whole  throb 
bing  orchestration  of  her  universe  had  stopped  as 
it  sometimes  can  seem  to  upon  the  motion-picture 
screen,  leaving  the  action  to  click  on  quietly  without 
the  excitation  of  music. 

She  had  taken,  at  the  instance  of  Mrs.  Blair,  a 
room  in  an  Eleventh  Street  house.  The  odor  of  Bo 
hemia,  which  is  the  odor  of  poverty  through  cigarette 
smoke,  lay  on  the  hallways.  There  were  frequent 
all-night  revelries  reverberated  down  from  the  sky 
light  room  on  the  top  floor,  and  one  evening  a  passing 
group  had  beat  a  can-can  of  invitation  on  her  door 
way;  but  she  could  lock  and  bolt  herself  into  her 
room,  a  box,  it  is  true,  at  two  dollars  and  a  half  a 


26o  STAR  DUST 

week,  but  it  boasted  half  curtains  of  yellow  scrim, 
a  couch-bed  with  a  moth-eaten  but  gay  wool  cover, 
and  a  small  square  of  table  with  a  reading  lamp 
attached  by  a  tube  to  the  gas  jet. 

She  found  herself  during  the  routine  of  her  business 
day  looking  forward  to  these  long,  quiet  evenings 
beside  the  tiny  table.  There  had  been  eight  un 
broken  weeks  of  them,  and  each  Sunday  a  fresh  little 
mound  of  sheer  garments  to  be  carried  out  to  Spuyten 
Duyvil.  Her  old  inaptitude  with  the  needle,  by  no 
means  overcome,  hampered  her  so  that  her  stitches 
were  often  wandering  gypsy  trails  to  be  ripped  over 
and  over,  and  then  her  fingers  leaving  little  prick 
stains  to  be  washed  out. 

She  had  grown  thinner,  so  much  so  that  a  slight 
jaw  line  had  come  out,  but  the  shells  were  gone  from 
beneath  her  eyes  and  it  pleased  her,  when  she  brushed 
out  her  hair  before  going  to  bed,  to  see  that  its  elec 
tricity,  which  had  departed  for  a  while,  was  out  in  it 
again,  so  that  it  would  snap  and  stand  out  hori 
zontally  from  her  head.  The  little  spark  of  a  smile 
was  constantly  over  her  face  like  a  mirage  before 
her  lips  and  her  eyes  and  seeming  to  hover  on  the 
very  peak  of  her  brows  when  she  arched  them. 

She  liked  to  stand  before  her  wavy  mirror,  fold 
ing  the  completed  garments  and  looking  back  at 
herself.  Newly  freed,  probably  by  the  great  Au- 
chinloss  and  her  daughter  between  them,  from  the 
bondage  of  an  idea,  she  felt  corporeally  lighter, 
and  was.  The  toothache  .of  her  being  had  ceased 
its  neuralgic  stabbings.  y 

It  was  not  unusual  for  her  to  stand  before  this 
mirror  before  climbing  into  bed,  her  mouth  bunched 
to  mimetics. 

"Zoe,  come  to  mother.   Mother!  Daughter,  they're 


STAR  DUST  261 

shouting  for  you !  Let  me  hold  your  flowers,  darling; 
they'll  smother  you!  .  .  .  You  mean  the  one  with 
the  yellow  curls,  madam  ?  The  valedictorian  ?  That's 
my  daughter!" 

All  the  spots  would  come  out  in  her  eyes,  like  little 
"niggers"  in  a  pair  of  diamonds,  and  more  often 
than  not  she  would  fall  asleep  then  with  a  crescent 
moon  of  a  smile  lying  deeply  into  her  face. 

One  day,  after  these  weeks  of  minute  fidelity  to 
routine,  she  was  startled  somewhat  by  a  request 
from  Robert  Visigoth,  in  the  form  of  a  note  sent  over 
to  her  desk,  to  remain  after  six  to  take  some  dicta 
tion.  The  big  temporary-looking  office  with  its 
absence  of  partitions  and  staring  lack  of  privacy  had 
become  a  paradoxical  source  of  security  to  her.  In 
all  the  eight  weeks,  three  of  which,  it  is  true,  he  had 
spent  in  Chicago,  she  had  not  once  encountered 
Robert  Visigoth  alone.  She  had  subconsciously  de 
veloped  the  habit  of  peering  down  the  dark  stairs 
that  led  to  the  stage  door  before  descending  them, 
and  on  one  or  two  occasions,  when  they  chanced  to 
pass,  had  flattened  herself  rather  unduly  against 
the  wall.  Her  comings  and  goings,  whether  by 
maneuver  or  not,  were  seldom  alone.  She  and  this 
Mrs.  Blair,  a  sparse,  umbrella  of  a  woman  with  a 
very  bitter  kind  of  widowhood,  had  formed  the  noon 
day  habit  of  taking  a  dairy  lunch  of  milk  and  cereal 
at  a  near-by  White  Kitchen  and  of  departing  evenings 
for  there,  too,  since  it  spelled  strong,  hot,  simple  foods 
and  a  very  superior  kind  of  cleanliness. 

It  was  with  a  distinct  sinkage,  well  laid  over 
with  office  imperturbability,  that  she  showed  Mrs. 
Blair  the  note,  saw  her  stab  into  her  greenish-black 
bird's  nest  of  a  hat  and  depart  alone.  Then  the  office 
boy;  the  publicity  man,  whistling;  a  clerk  or  two, 


262  STAR  DUST 

and  finally  a  sixteen-year-old  girl  who  pasted  clip 
pings  into  scrap  books. 

The  pleasantly  cool  summer  day  had  thickened 
up  rather  suddenly  into  the  beginnings  of  dusk,  the 
electric  sign  down  over  the  theater  throwing  up  a 
sudden  glow  through  the  windows.  She  sat  before 
her  machine,  shorthand  book  in  lap,  her  attitude 
quiet  enough  except  that  her  hands,  as  they  clasped 
each  other,  showed  whitish  at  the  nails,  and  she 
would  not  swerve  her  gaze  by  the  fraction  of  an  inch, 
even  with  the  consciousness  of  a  presence  behind  her. 

It  was  Visigoth  at  her  shoulder,  the  male  aroma 
of  him,  a  mixture  of  cigar  smoke,  bay  rum,  and 
freshly  washed  hands,  and  the  feel  of  his  rough-serge 
suit  very  close. 

She  rose,  withholding  herself  stiffly  from  his  near 
ness,  marveling,  as  always,  at  this  power  of  hers  to 
endure  him  so  casually. 

"Letters?"  she  asked. 

He  placed  a  knee  on  the  chair  rung,  tilting  it  toward 
him,  and  leaning  across  the  back  at  her. 

"You  funny,  funny  girl,"  he  said,  regarding  her 
intently  through  the  crinkling  eyes. 

She  met  his  stare  in  a  challenging  sort  of  silence. 

"My,  what  big  eyes  you  have!" 

"Please,"  she  said,  retreating  from  the  look  in  his, 
her  weight  .against  the  table  until  it  slid. 

"Please  what?"  he  rather  mimicked,  advancing 
the  exact  distance  of  her  withdrawal,  the  smile  out 
on  his  never  quite  dry  lips. 

"Please— don't." 

The  corpulency  which  was  one  day  to  envelop 
him  like  suet  was  already  giving  him  the  appearance 
of  ten  years  his  senior.  He  had  upon  occasion  been 
mistaken  for  the  father  of  his  younger  brother, 


STAR  DUST  263 

and  some  of  Lilly's  acute  distaste  for  him,  across  the 
slight  enough  chasm  of  the  seven  or  eight  years  be 
tween  them,  was  already  that  of  youth  for  lasciv 
ious  age. 

''Shall  I  take  those  letters  now— Mr.  Visigoth?" 

"I  would  rather  take  you — to  dinner." 

"I  might  have  known,"  she  said,  rather  tiredly. 

"What?" 

"That  you  would  not  keep  your  word." 

"I  have  though,  for  eight  weeks." 

"I  thought  your  promise  meant — " 

"Ah  no.  I  never  broke  a  promise  in  my  life,  but 
even  I  cannot  be  expected  to  keep  one  indefinitely 
with  a  girl  like  you  within  eyeshot." 

"That  can  be  easily  corrected." 

"Come  now,  I'm  giving  you  your  chance  here  to 
make  good." 

"Well  then/let  me  take  it." 

"My  dear  girl,  never  expect  the  best  of  us  to  be 
more  than  human." 

"I  suppose,  then,  this  is  to  be  the  regulation, 
theatrical  -  manager  -  dangers  -  of  -  a  -  big  -  city  kind 
of  scene." 

"Come  now,"  he  said,  his  voice  plushy  with  the 
right  to  intimacy.  "We  understand  each  other — 
Lilly." 

She  stood  silent,  flaming  her  humiliation. 

"And  I  like  you  for  it.  If  there  is  one  thing  to  my 
mind  less  interesting  than  another,  it  is  the  un- 
tempted  kind  of  woman  who — " 

"I  never  pretended  to  you,  Mr.  Visigoth,  that  I 
was  what  you  are  pleased  to  term — tempted!" 

"No?  But  how  much  more  redeeming  if  you  had 
been." 

1 '  Nothing  can  ever  redeem  that — night — except — " 


264  STAR  DUST 

"Except?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know — maybe — except — God.'* 

"You  funny,  funny  girl!"  he  repeated.  "I  like 
you." 

"I  know  your  kind  of  liking.  You  like  me  for  the 
kind  of  thing  you  would  protect  your  wife  or  your 
daughter  from  with  all  the  fury  of  your  little  ele 
mental  soul." 

"I  haven't  a  wife,  I  haven't  a  daughter,  and  I 
like  you." 

"No,  but  you  will  have  presently.  Your  kind 
always  does  and  you  11  be  the  ideal  family  man  who 
telephones  home  from  the  office  three  times  a  day 
to  see  if  the  baby  has  taken  her  cough  medicine  regu 
larly,  and  you'll  knock  the  man  down  that  brushes 
your  wife  too  closely  in  a  crowd,  and  because  of  your 
attitude  toward  all  but  your  own  women  you'll 
suspect  every  man  who  even  approaches  your 
daughter.  In  the  eyes  of  the  world  you're  entitled 
to  your  wild  oats.  That's  what  I  am,  a  wild  oat  to 
be  sown  at  your  pleasure.  If  you  haven't  any 
letters,  Mr.  Visigoth,  I'm  going.  I — " 

"No,"  he  said,  closing  his  hand  over  hers. 
"Don't." 

"You  force  me." 

"Nonsense!*  Haven't  I  promised  to  let  you  be, 
Lilly?  I've  respected  that  promise  to  the  letter,  as  I 
always  respect  a  promise.  The  past  is  dead,  it  died 
with  that  night.  I  swear  it  over  again." 

"Dead,  with  your  reminding  me  with  every  word 
you  utter — every  look." 

' '  Nonsense,  I  tell  you !  I've  treated  you  like  every 
one  else  in  this  office.  Made  things  easy  for  you. 
Helped  you." 

"And  I've  tried  to  justify  my  position  in  your 


STAR  DUST  265 

office.  To  hold  it  by  sheer  merit  so  that  this — this 
wouldn't — couldn't  happen.  And  now  you — your 
daring  to  keep  me  here  like  this  shows  me  I've  failed." 
"You  haven't.  You've  raised  the  efficiency  of 
the  office  forty  per  cent.  I'm  turning  you  over  to 
my  brother  as  a  prize.  I've  got  you  in  mind  for  the 
booking  end  of  the  businsss.  That's  what  I  think  of 
you." 

"Oh,   Mr.  Visigoth,  if  you  knew — if  you  knew 
what  that  would  mean  to  me.    I'll  give  you  my  best ! 
Let  me  go  on  proving  to  you  that  I  want  to  stay 
here  to  make  good  on  my  merits — as  man  to  man!" 
"I  wish  to  God  I  could  figure  you  out." 
"I  made  it  clear — that  night — " 
"But  I  flattered  myself  at  least  that—" 
"You  hadn't  that  right.    Ours  was  a  cold  business 
deal.    So  much  for  so  much!    I  never  for  a  moment 
pretended  otherwise.    I  was  in  need.    Terrible  need. 
I  didn't  think  when  I  came  to  you  that  you  would 
do  business  on  any  other  terms  than  you  did." 
"I  envy  the  fellow  that  awakens  you." 
"Oh,  I've  been  awakened!    Awakened  to  the  fact 
that  a  woman  out  in  the  world  has  to  fight  through 
a  barrier  of  yourselves  that  you  men  erect.    But  I'm 
not  afraid  of  your  barrier.     In  the  last  analysis  I 
know  that  I  have  the  situation  in  ITand.     Every 
woman  has.     It  is  a  matter  of  whether  she  will  or 
she  won't !    I  had  an  alternative — that  night.    Could 
have  taken  it,  but  wouldn't.     Would  do  the  same 
over  again.    A  man  invariably  takes  his  cue.    You 
took  yours.    Even  a  street  masher  takes  his  cue  from 
the  look  in  her  eyes  whether  he  will  or  won't  follow 
up." 

"Right,  but  public  sentiment  is  all  on  the  woman's 
side." 


266  STAR  DUST 

"It's  worth  more  to  me  to  know  that  the  situation 
was  in  my  own  hands  than  it  is  to  play  the  sensational 
role  of  more  sinned  against  than  usual." 

"You're  immense." 

Dryly,  "Doubtless,  from  your  point  of  view." 

"From  any—" 

"Now  look  here.  I  need  this  position  here  more 
desperately  than  I  ever  needed  anything  in  my  life. 
It  means  the  success  or  failure  of  something  that 
I've  staked  every  card  on,  of  a  fight  that  nobody  in 
the  world  would  understand — possibly  not  even  my 
self.  But  that  doesn't  change  the  fact  that  the 
situation  again  is  mine.  I  am  in  a  position  now  to 
demand  fairer  terms  than  I  was — then.  I  return  to 
work  to-morrow  only  on  those  terms,  Mr.  Visigoth." 

The  veil  of  light  from  the  sign  fell  upon  her  in  the 
rigidity  of  her  pose  and  pallor.  For  some  reason  she 
was  hugging  one  of  the  book-shaped  letter  files,  all 
the  black  out  in  her  eyes. 

He  sat  down,  straddling  the  chair,  his  arms  across 
the  back  and  his  chin  down  upon  them. 

"Who  are  you?"  he  said,  regarding  her  with  the 
intense  squint  of  one  in  need  of  glasses. 

She  felt  her  power  over  the  moment,  and  with  her 
old  slant  for  it  began  to  dramatize. 

"I'm  the  grist  being  ground  between  yesterday 
and  to-day.  Sometimes  I  think  I  must  be  some'sort 
of  an  unfinished  symphony  which  it  will  take  another 
generation  to  complete.  I  am  a  river  and  I  long  to 
be  a  sea.  I  must  be  the  grape  between  the  vine  of  my 
family  and  the  wine  of  my  progeny.  That's  it,  I'm 
the  grape  fermenting!" 

Then  she  felt  absurd  and  looked  absurd  and  stood 
there  with  the  quick  fizzing  spurt  of  exultation  died 
down  into  a  state  of  bathos. 


STAR  DUST  267 

"Let  me  stay  on  here  on  my  terms,  Mr.  Visigoth," 
she  finished  with  a  sort  of  broken-wing  lameness  of 
voice. 

" What  terms?" 

"The  terms  you  have  been  generous  enough  not  to 
violate  up  to  now.  I've  the  most  glorious  reason  for 
wanting  to  make  good  that  a  girl — a  woman  could 
have.  I  don't  think  the  career  stuff,  as  you  once 
called  it,  is  rankling  any  more.  I'm  suddenly  glad  and 
quiet  about  my  job.  Let  me  stay  on.  Let  me  make 
myself  indispensable  to  this  growing,  interesting 
enterprise  of  yours.  Why,  even  watching  the  letters 
grow  in  numbers  and  importance,  and  using  the 
little  individuality  in  handling  them  that  you  are 
beginning  to  allow  me,  is  a  game  worth  playing! 
I'm  like  a  bad  girl  who  has  been  spanked  by  life  and 
is  all  chastened  and  ready  to  be  good.  If  you  are 
the  clever  business  man  I  think  you  are,  you'll  let 
me  stay,  Mr.  Visigoth,  on  my  terms." 

There  was  a  shine  to  her  there  in  the  half  light, 
probably  because  her  eyes  were  wide  and  the  muscles 
of  her  face  lifted  so  that  her  teeth  showed,  but  not 
in  a  smile. 

"I  played  the  game  on  your  terms,  Mr.  Visigoth; 
now  meet  me  on  mine." 

"Put  your  cards  on  the  table,  then;  no  fine  flights 
of  speech  either.  Who  are  you?" 

"I  told  you  from  the  first  I  am  a  married  woman, 
with  nothing  to  be  said  against  my  husband  except 
that  he  was  part  of  a  condition  that  was  intolerable 
to  me." 

"Where  is  he?" 

"West." 

"Stage  ambition,  eh?" 

"  Yes  or —   I  don't  know.    Too  many  ambitions  of 


268  STAR  DUST 

all  kinds  crawling  over  me  like  a  terrible  itch,  for 
God  knows  what.  Fermenting.  The  grape  fer 
menting!  But  I'm  quiet  now.  So  quiet  that  some 
times  I  think  I  wouldn't  change  it  for  even  the — the 
singing  wine  of  fulfillment.  I  don't  think  I  can  make 
you  understand.  I  seem  to  have  been  stretching  all 
these  years  for — for  something  my  arm  isn't  quite 
long  enough  to  touch,  and  now  my  child — my  little 
girl—" 

"You  have  a  child?" 

"A  little  girl." 

"How  old?" 

"Eleven  weeks." 

He  looked  at  her  across  a  long  silence. 

"Good  God!"  he  said,  and  then  again,  "Good 
God." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  watching  belated  comprehensions 
flood  up  into  his  face,  "that  was  it." 

"You  mean  you  had  on  your  hands  that  night  a — " 

"Yes,  a  three-and-a-half -weeks-old  one." 

'  *  You  were  broke  ? ' ' 

"Stony." 

' '  Good  God !    You— poor— " 

"I'm  not  pleading  for  your  sympathy,  Mr.  Visigoth. 
"Only  a  square  deal.  Will  you  give  it?" 

He  walked  over  to  his  desk,  turning  on  a  green- 
shaded  bulb,  the  clip  back  in  his  voice  and  manner. 

"That  will  be  all  for  this  evening,  Mrs.  Parlow — " 

"Penny." 

"Mrs.  Penny,"  he  said,  picking  up  a  random  sheaf 
of  papers  and  not  meeting  her  eyes.  * '  I  want  you  to 
go  over  to  Newark  Monday  afternoon  and  bring 
back  a  report  on  an  act  over  there;  and,  by  the  way, 
you  are  to  begin  your  new  week  in  the  booking  de 
partment  at  twenty  dollars." 


STAR  DUST  269 

She  wanted  to  speak  and  her  lips  did  move,  but 
the  tears  anticipated  her,  and,  blink  as  she  would, 
they  sprang,  magnifying  her  glance,  and  besides, 
there  were  footsteps  coming  up  the  flight  of  stairs 
that  led  from  the  stage  entrance,  and  a  young,  a 
lean,  a  honed  silhouette  rather  suddenly  in  the 
doorway,  the  right  side  borne  down  by  the  pull  of  a 
dress-suit  case. 

' '  R.  J  ?"    Peering  into  the  gloom. 

"Good  Lord!"  from  the  figure  at  the  desk,  lean 
ing  forward  on  the  palm  of  his  hand.  "That  you, 
Bruce?" 

They  met  center,  gripping  hands. 

"When  did  you  get  in,  youngster?  Didn't  expect 
you  for  another  couple  of  days." 

"Just  now.    Took  a  chance  on  finding  you  here." 

"Another  five  minutes  and  you  wouldn't  have." 

"So  these  are  the  new  diggings?" 

"There  is  your  desk." 

He  deposited  his  hat  on  the  flat  top  indicated,  his 
silhouette  cutting  vigorously  into  the  dimness,  par 
ticularly  the  rather  heavy  double  wave  to  his  hair 
causing  Lilly  to  grope  with  a  vague  sense  of  having 
seen  him  before.  It  was  merely  a  rather  remote  re 
semblance  to  the  remote  Horace  Lindsley,  but  not 
for  days  did  she  stumble  across  this  realization. 

She  knew,  instinctively,  even  while  she  marveled 
at  his  youth  and  the  merest  and  most  lightninglike 
resemblance  to  his  brother,  that  here  was  Bruce 
Visigoth,  and  what  she  did  not  know  was  that  a 
certain  throaty  resonance  to  his  voice  had  a  tendency 
to  gooseflesh  her  and  that  quite  suddenly  her  eyes 
were  very  hot  and  her  hands  very  cold. 

"Well,  R.  J.,"  he  was  saying,  and  she  noticed  that 
his  head  came  up  with  a  fine  kind  of  young  defiance, 


270  STAR  DUST 

as  if  a  pair  of  invisible  Mercury  wings  flowed  with  the 
sleek  nap  of  his  hair,  "I'm  for  taking  a  chance  on  the 
Buffalo  lease.  I  stopped  over  yesterday  and  the 
little  theater  looks  good  to  me." 

It  was  then  Lilly  began  noiselessly  to  move  toward 
the  door. 

"Oh  —  here  —  Mrs.  Penny.  My  brother,  Mrs. 
Penny.  Sort  of  secretary  on  the  booking  depart 
ment,  and  a  darn  good  one." 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Penny?  Mighty  pleased," 
he  said,  through  the  resonance  that  had  a  little 
aftermath  of  a  ting  to  it. 

Her  five  fingers  rather  trailed  along  the  palm  of 
his  hand  as  he  slowly  released  her. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Visigoth,"  she  said,  smiling  up 
at  him  with  her  eyebrows,  pressing  down  her  sailor 
hat,  and  hurrying  toward  the  staircase. 

Outside,  the  darkness  had  the  quality  of  cool  water 
to  her  face.  The  palm  of  her  right  hand  and  the  tips 
of  her  fingers  were  tingling  as  if  they  had  been  kissed. 

She  could  have  run  before  the  wind. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FROM  now  on  for  many  a  month  to  come,  the 
curve  of  Lilly's  life  would  have  shown  a  running 
festoon;  six  days  whose  uneventful  continuity  was 
bearable  because  they  were  looped  up  by  the  rosette 
of  the  Sundays  at  Spuyten  Duyvil. 

When  Zoe  was  two  years  old  this  hebdomadal 
consciousness  was  already  borne  upon  her.  Into  her 
earliest  vocabulary,  as  haphazard  as  if  the  words 
had  been  dished  up  out  of  the  alphabet  of  a  vermi 
celli  soup,  crept  the  word  "Sunday,"  mysteriously 
boiled  down  to  "Nunk,"  the  first  time  her  mother 
heard  it,  the  pride  seeming  to  crowd  around  her 
heart,  fairly  suffocating  her. 

As  if  the  luster  of  this  girl  child  could  be  any 
brighter,  yet  here  was  the  new  shine  of  the  mental 
beginning  to  radiate  through.  Nunk! 

Was  there  any  limit  to  this  ecstasy  of  possession? 
It  ran  through  her  days  like  a  song. 

It  meant  that  while  the  home-going  six-o'clock 
rush  at  Union  Square,  which  of  face  is  the  composite 
immobility  of  a  dead  Chinaman,  would  presently 
cram  into  street  cars  and  then  deploy  out  into  the 
inhospitable  cubbyholes  of  the  most  hospitable  city 
in  the  world,  Lilly,  even  in  her  weariness,  could  be 
deterred  by  the  lure  of  a  curb  vender  and  a  jumping 
toy  dog.  There  was  never  a  time  or  a  weather  that 
she  could  pass,  without  pause,  Westheim's  Art 
Needlework  Shop  on  Broadway  and  its  array  of 
linen-lawn  dainties,  and,  remarkably  enough,  the  pur- 


272  STAR  DUST 

chase  of  the  toy  dog  or  a  five-cent  peppermint  cane 
could  send  her  home  with  an  actual  physical  refresh 
ment  as  if  she  had  slept  off,  rather  than  cast  off, 
fatigue. 

She  would  line  up  during  the  week,  Monday's 
toy  dog,  Tuesday's  peppermint  cane,  Wednesday's 
cap  rosettes  (fashioned  out  of  five  yards  of  baby 
ribbon  at  one  cent  the  yard),  and  so  on  to  Saturday's 
climax  of  bootines,  and  on  one  occasion  a  large  cir 
cular  wooden  arrangement,  a  sort  of  first  aid  to  the 
first  step,  which  she  carried  out  herself,  standing 
with  it  on  the  train  platform. 

With  her  three  months'  running  start,  paid  in  ad 
vance  and  duly  receipted  by  Mrs.  Dupree,  Lilly's 
weekly  expenditures,  by  the  nicest  calculation,  re 
duced  themselves  thus: 

Room  rent $2 . 50 

Car  fare  (one  round  trip  to  Spuyten  Duyvil) 60 

Breakfast  (gas-jet  boiled  egg,  an  apple,  three  biscuits  from 

a  tin,  and  coffee) 50 

Lunch  (milk,  cereal,  sandwich) i .  50 

Dinner  (lamb  or  beef  stew,  green  vegetable,  pie,  coffee. 

Tip) 3-50 

Laundry 75 

$9-35 

There  were  already  forty-two  dollars  and  sixty- 
eight  cents  hoarded  in  a  little  biscuit  tin  in  the 
depths  of  her  valise,  and  out  of  it  had  come  a  gift 
for  Mrs.  Dupree,  a  rather  interesting  relic  of  an  old 
silver  thimble  wrought  in  cunning  filigree  which  she 
had  bought  in  two  payments  of  seventy-five  cents 
each,  and  largely  by  eliminating  the  pie  for  a  month, 
from  a  rapidly  diminishing  keep-chest  of  Ida  Blair's. 

A  friendship  had  sprung  up  here,  which,  born  out 


STAR  DUST  273 

of  the  merest  propinquity,  had  sent  down  strong 
roots  into  the  common  ground  between  them. 

One  or  two  nights  they  had  attended  the  theater 
together,  on  orchestra  passes  given  out  to  them  by 
one  or  the  other  of  the  Visigoths. 

One  Wednesday  evening  they  saw  the  "School  for 
Scandal"  presented  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  and 
once,  just  before  the  permanent  departure  of  R.  J. 
for  Chicago,  he  had  tossed  negligently  across  the  desk 
a  single  balcony  ticket  for  Eames  in  "Faust.'' 

"Here  is  something  ought  to  keep  one  of  you  busy 
this  rainy  evening." 

Ensued  a  highly  feminine  parley. 

"Mrs.  Blair,  you  take  the  ticket.  Really,  I'm  too 
tired  and  I've  some  sewing  to  do." 

1  *  Nonsense !  You're  musical  and  I'm  not.  Besides, 
it  will  do  you  a  world  of  good." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Lilly,  her  lips  giving  a  sensi 
tive  quiver.  "I've  put  it  so  out  of  my  mind  that  it 
might  only  tantalize." 

But  in  the  end  she  did  attend,  seating  herself,  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life,  in  the  F-minor,  the  per 
fumed  twilight  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House, 
just  as  the  velvet  curtains  swished  sibilantly  apart. 

Day  was  breaking,  and  in  all  the  passion  and 
churchiness  of  Gounod,  the  student  calls  for  death, 
the  echoes  of  human  happiness  rustling  through  the 
background  like  the  scything  sound  of  harvesting. 

Lilly  could  scarcely  breathe  for  the  poignancy  of 
sensation.  She  was  all  throat.  Faust's  opening 
greeting  to  the  dawn,  his  challenge  to  happiness, 
pierced  her.  She  sat  forward  on  her  chair,  antici 
pating  the  lyrical  vision  of  Marguerite,  her  hands 
clasped  over  the  handle  of  her  wet  umbrella,  and  her 
knees  crowded  up  unconsciously  about  its  dampness. 


274  STAR  DUST 

She  bought  the  libretto,  humming  down  into  it 
between  acts  and  leaping  ahead  to  verify  her  memory 
of  the  score. 

Poor  Lilly,  it  is  doubtful  if  she  was  by  endowment 
more  than  a  lovely  melomaniac  doomed  never  to 
emerge  from  her  musical  primaries.  A  mere  tonal 
accord  could  assail  her  nostrils  like  a  perfume  set  to 
music.  And  yet  her  quick  ear,  though,  was  not  exact. 
Her  capacity  for  fine  vocal  distinctions  in  her  own 
singing  had  been  distinctly  limited,  and  a  note 
T  landing  just  this  side  of  itself  could  drop  down  into 
her  state  of  ecstatic  coma  with  hardly  a  plop.  She 
had  neither  capacity  for  exactitude  nor  tireless 
fidelity  to  tone.  It  made  her  neck  ache.  She  had 
never  graduated  from  musical  sensation  to  cerebra 
tion  ;  a  theme  washed  her  over  with  all  the  voluptu 
ous  abandon  of  a  Henner  sea  siren  letting  the  water 
tickling  up  the  beach  to  roll  over  her  lightly. 

There  was  unrest  in  the  balcony  because  Faust 
was  singing  through  laryngitis  and  a  cloud  of  fog  in 
his  throat.  A  critic  who  wrote  in  terms  of  elliptical 
rhythms  and  tonal  arabesques  tiptoed  out  for  a 
smoke.  One  of  those  sympathetic  fits  of  coughing 
swept  the  house.  But  Lilly  sat  hunched  in  her 
habitual  beatific  attitude  against  the  chair  back,  the 
old  opera  flowing  back  to  her  in  association  that 
caught  her  at  the  tonsils. 

"Lilly,  play  that  over,  the  left  hand  alone." 

"Oh,  mamma,  mamma!" 

That  blue  challis  wrapper  shotted  with  pink  rose 
buds. 

"Lilly,  play  that  over." 

Eames  down  there  flinging  up  the  "Jewel  Song" 
like  a  curve  of  gold.  Her  place ! 

She  half  rose  to  her  feet. 


STAR  DUST  275 

Down  in  front ! 

She  sat  again,  but  a  sudden,  an  inexplicable  sense 
of  wanting  to  plunge  from  the  height  of  the  balcony 
seized  her.  It  had  been  so  long  since  the  old  neu 
ralgic  stabbings  of  spirit.  She  wanted  to  jump  and 
had  a  ludicrous  vision  of  herself  landing  down  in  the 
cream  of  white  shoulders  and  crashing  through  the 
U  of  one  of  those  immaculate  shirt  fronts.  She  could 
have  torn  and  scratched  the  indestructibility  of  her 
failure  and  wanted  suddenly  and  terribly  to  wrap 
those  pearl-twined  taffy  braids  around  the  rising 
throat  of  Marguerite  as  she  sprayed  the  auditorium 
with  the  "Jewel  Song,"  a  great  fire  hose  of  liquid 
music  finding  out  every  cranny. 

In  the  deep-napped  velvet  of  this  melodious 
darkness  Lilly  rose  suddenly,  pushing  her  way 
out  through  knee-impeded  aisles  and  a  string  of 
protestations. 

An  usher  helped  her  to  find  a  door.  She  ran  down 
several  flights  and  into  a  side  street.  A  slant  of  rain 
met  her  and  she  charged  into  it  with  bent  head  and 
umbrella.  Bubbles  with  a  tap  of  sleet  in  them 
exploded  like  little  torpedoes  on  the  sidewalks,  curbs 
were  rushing  water,  and  Broadway  was  as  black  and 
oily-looking  as  a  foundry.  She  tried  to  visualize  it 
as  she  had  seen  it  that  first  morning  from  her  window 
at  the  Hudson  Hotel,  pink  with  sun. 

The  picture  would  not  conjure,  and  finally,  because 
her  shoes  were  full  of  bubbles  and  her  damp  skirt 
clung  and  hindered  walking,  she  boarded  a  street 
car  and  sat  looking  out  of  the  water-lashed  windows, 
her  throat  full  of  little  moans  like  the  song  of  a 
kettle  just  about  to  boil. 

When  she  reached  home  there  was  an  envelope 
beneath  her  door.  It  contained  a  snapshot  picture 


276  STAR  DUST 

of  herself  and  Zoe  taken  by  Mrs.  Dupree  one  Sunday 
afternoon.  Still  wet,  she  sat  down  with  it  on  the 
bed  edge.  Against  a  background  of  shrub  and  stone 
steps  Lilly  was  little  more  than  a  blur,  but  Zoe,  with 
five  little  fingers  dug  into  her  cheek,  leaped  from  the 
picture,  all  her  dimples  out. 

The  mood  induced  by  the  opera  fell  off  like  a  cloak, 
a  warm,  easy  tear  splashing  right  down  on  the  ador 
able  little  face.  She  wiped  it  off  ever  so  painstakingly, 
holding  the  little  print  up  to  the  gas  to  dry. 

Then  she  stood  it  up  on  the  table  so  she  could 
gaze  down  and  smile  while  she  undressed,  and  even 
placed  it  on  the  floor  as  she  leaned  down  to  unlace 
her  shoes.  She  climbed  into  bed  with  it  under  her 
pillow,  but  rose  in  the  darkness  to  transfer  it,  against 
crumpling,  beneath  the  mattress. 

She  went  to  sleep  right  off  with  a  little  smile  on 
her  lips,  as  if  the  picture  had  kissed  it  there,  but  it  was 
many  a  day,  sixteen  years,  in  fact,  before  she  could 
be  induced  to  enter  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House 
again,  and  then  only  in  the  most  crowded  hour  of  her 
life. 


CHAPTER  V 

QUITE  a  friendship  was  thriving  between  Lilly 
and  Mrs.  Blair.  The  older  woman  had  opened 
the  door  to  her  upon  that  family  skeleton,  one  of 
whiqh,  by  the  way,  lurks  in  the  cupboards  of  most  of 
us — the  unproduced  play !  This  one,  a  sketch  called 
"The  Web,"  read  by  Lilly  and  even  placed  by  her 
with  a  written  word  of  appreciation  on  Robert 
Visigoth's  desk. 

He  carried  it  with  him  to  Chicago,  mailing  it  back 
one  day  without  comment. 

"Just  the  same,  there  is  a  corking  idea  there.  You 
ought  to  develop  it  into  a  long  play,  Mrs.  Blair." 

"I  will  some  day,"  she  replied,  with  a  cryptic 
something  in  her  voice  that  Lilly  was  only  to  under 
stand  a  year  later. 

One  spring  evening,  that  year  later,  as  she  and 
Mrs.  Blair  sat  in  her  small  room  beside  the  open 
window  that  looked  out  over  the  twilighted  rear  of 
housetops,  Lilly  was  induced  to  sing,  quietly,  almost 
under  her  breath,  sitting  there  on  the  floor  with  her 
hands  clasped  about  her  knees,  her  invariable  shirt 
waist  and  dark-blue  skirt  discarded  for  a  pleasant 
sense  of  negligee  in  a  pink  cotton-cr£pe  kimono, 
her  hair  flowing  with  the  swift  sort  of  rush  peculiar 
to  it. 

They  had  just  completed,  as  a  relief  from  the 
nightly  round  of  lunch  rooms,  a  wood-alcohol  meal 
of  canned  baked  beans,  cheese,  crackers,  and  tinned 
sweet  cakes.  Even  Mrs.  Blair,  at  an  age  when  the 


278  STAR  DUST 

years  are  at  the  throat  of  a  woman,  shriveling  it, 
had  opened  her  blouse  at  the  neck,  revealing  an 
unsuspected  survival  of  its  whiteness. 

Lilly  sang  "Jocelyn,"  a  lullaby  dimmed  in  her 
memory  by  the  mist  of  years  and  full  of  inaccuracies. 
She  had  last  sung  it  at  Flora  Kemble's. 

It  lay  on  the  twilight  after  she  had  finished. 

4 'How  pretty!  Why  don't  you  let  one  of  the  Visi 
goths  hear  you?  It  might  lead  to  something." 

" Robert  V.  has  heard  me." 

"Well,  I  don't  pretend  to  be  a  judge  of  music, 
but  considering  your  youth  and  looks  and  when  I 
see  the  kind  of  thing  that  does  get  across — " 

' '  I  know.  I  used  to  feel  that  way  about  it,  too — 
hot,  rebellious — but,  somehow,  not  any  more. 
Strange  that  it  should  have  taken  my  child  to  show 
me.  I  realized  it  last  winter  when  I  heard  Eames. 
I  simply  hadn't  it  to  give,  except  in  desire.  Why,  her 
voice — it  seemed  to  climb  up  around  an  invisible 
spiral  staircase  to  the  stars;  and  that  wasn't  all! 
There  was  something  so  richly  colored  through  it — 
like  the  candy  stripe  through  a  crystal.  I  know  now 
— and  I'm  glad  I  know — that  my  ambition  was 
bigger  than  my  talent." 

"I  suppose  that  is  what  you  thought  about  me, 
too,  when  you  read  my  sketch." 

"No,  no.  I  admit  I  did  think  it  amateurish,  but 
there  is  an  idea  in  'The  Web.'  Almost  as  if  you  had 
lived  it  yourself  and  had  written  it  in  blood.  Be 
sides,  you  know  the  secret  of  concentration ;  it  shows 
in  your  work  at  the  office.  I  couldn't  stick  night 
after  night  over  one  of  those  trial  balances  of  yours. 
I'd  throw  it  over.  I've  never  in  my  life  really  worked 
for  anything.  Even  as  a  child  I  used  to  cheat  myself — 
move  the  clock;  hadn't  that  sublime  capacity  for 


STAR  DUST  .  279 

grind.  That  was  part  of  the  lack.  How  clear  it  all 
seems  now!" 

"The  cruelest  clarity  in  the  world  is  wisdom  after 
the  event." 

" Oh,  but  I  wouldn't  have  one  thing  different!  It 
simply  wasn't  in  me  to  want  badly  enough,  and  there 
fore  I  didn't  attain.  But  I  know — I  know,  Mrs. 
Blair,  that  there  is  a  logic  running  somewhere 
through  it  all.  Nothing  has  been  in  vain.  I'm  out 
on  a  highroad  now  with  open  running  ahead.  I'm 
going  to  rear  her  into  a  superwoman.  She  is  my  song, 
Zoe !  There  is  logic,  I  tell  you,  Mrs.  Blair — straight 
through  the  apparent  mix-up.  Off  somewhere  in 
Corsica  a  vine  is  putting  down  roots  that  there  may 
be  wine  in  somebody's  glass  some  day.  The  vine. 
The  grape.  The  wine." 

"The  vine.    The  grape.    The  wine." 

"Don't  you  understand  now  a  little  better,  Mrs. 
Blair,  why  this  poor  little  fermenting  grape  couldn't 
stay  on  the  vine?" 

"You've  told  me  so  little,  dear." 

"More  than  I've  ever  told  a  living  soul.  There's 
one  thought  I  love  to  carry  about  with  me  about 
Zoe.  She  was  born  out  of  captivity.  No  Chinese 
shoes  for  her  little  mind  or  her  little  Soul  or  body. 
I'm  vague  about  it  now,  just  as  I'm  half  crystallized 
about  everything.  But  this  time  my  will  to  do  is 
unlimited  and  unfaltering !  Her  whole  life  is  going  to 
be  a  growth  toward  fulfillment  of  self.  I  want  life  to 
dawn  upon  her  in  great  truths,  not  in  ugly  shocks  and 
realizations.  She  is  a  plant  and  I  am  her  trellis  toward 
the  light.  Do  you  see  ?  Do  you  ?  I  may  be  as  wrong 
as  you  think  I  am,  Mrs.  Blair — terribly,  irrevocably 
wrong — but  I  wouldn't  take  her  back  there  into  that 
— that — sedentary  fatness — I  wouldn't — " 


280  STAR  DUST 

A  musing  sort  of  silence  .had  fallen  into  a  gloom 
that  was  thickening  into  darkness. 

"The  more  I  see  of  your  case,  Lilly,  the  less  I 
understand  it.  To  think  of  anyone  in  this  world  of 
suffering  deliberately  bringing  it  upon  herself. 
Why,  my  dear,  it  isn't  any  of  my  business,  but  when 
I  think  of  those  parents  of  yours  out  there,  compre 
hending  nothing,  and  that  poor  bewildered  husband 
of  yours,  I  could  cry  for  them." 

"Do  you  think  I  don't,  Mrs.  Blair,  whole  night- 
fuls  of  tears?  Why,  yesterday  at  the  Library  in 
my  home  paper  I  saw  a  little  local  notice  of  my 
mother's  euchre  club  meeting  at  our  house — it  was 
a  knife,  somehow — the  pain  of  it — 

"I'm  not  saying  so  much  about  the  husband,  only, 
God  knows  why  a  woman  should  throw  away  a  life 
time  of  protection  just  because  a  man  chews  with 
his  temples  and— 

"Surely  you  haven't  taken  that  literally!  I  only 
tried  to  symbolize  for  you  that  the  unimportant  man 
nerisms  that  may  even  delight  in  one  person  can 
become  monstrosities  in  another.  Oh,  I  haven't 
made  you  understand — " 

"Yes,  dear  child,  you  have  made  me  understand 
this  much.  What  a  fine  sense  of  satire  the  power 
behind  the  throne  of  the  world  must  have.  Take 
me — that  first  little  two-by-four  home  of  mine  over 
in  a  back  street  of  Newark.  Talk  to  me  of  freedom ! 
I  married  to  get  away  from  it.  Somebody  who  cared 
whether  I  came  or  went.  Somebody  who  cared 
enough  to  want  to  restrict  me." 

"Ah  yes,  but—" 

"We  had  a  little  house  on  Dayton  Street;  must 
have  been  a  hundred  years  old,  with  funny  little 
leaded  panes  and  a  staircase  rising  out  of  the  parlor 


STAR  DUST  281 

to  a  queer  old  box  of  a  bedroom  with  slant  walls. 
We  painted  the  floors  ourselves  and  Lon  did  the 
doors  in  burntwood.  He  had  a  feeling  for  the 
artistic,  Lon  had.  That  was  the  way  we  met — that 
was — the  way — we — met." 

"How?" 

"He  was  a  police  sergeant  then,  and  I  was  book 
keeping  for  the  time  for  Metz  Producing  Company. 
Lon  used  to  drop  in  once  in  a  while  for  passes. 
Then  he  got  to  waiting  for  me  evenings  with  little 
pencil  drawings  of  all  the  funny  things  that  had 
happened  to  him  during  the  day.  I  was  strong  for 
him  to  get  off  the  force  and  take  up  art,  but  even 
then,  now  that  I  look  back  on  it,  I  can  see  that  Lon 
was  fed  up  on  propositions  that  it  was  driving  him 
half  mad  to  resist.  That  in  itself  should  have  put 
me  on  my  guard,  but  it  didn't.  I  don't  know  why 
I'm  telling  you  all  this — " 

"Goon." 

"Oh,  I  must  have  known  in  a  way  that  Lon  was 
drinking  in  his  effort  to  keep  his  eyes  shut  to  the 
bribe  money  that  could  have  come  his  way.  He 
never  came  home  to  me  under  the  influence,  but 
toward — the  end — his  eyes  began  to  glassen  up.  I 
was  all  for  getting  his  beat  changed.  You  see,  it 
took  him  down  into  the  gang  and  red-light  districts. 
More  than  that,  I  had  my  heart  set  on  seeing  him 
off  the  force  altogether.  I  wanted  to  keep  my  posi 
tion  for  a  year  or  two  after  we  were  married  and 
send  him  to  Paris  to  study  art.  I've  some  cartoons 
in  my  trunk.  That  boy  would  have  made  good  as — 
Well,  it  didn't  happen.  I  blame  myself.  Marriage 
made  a  great  baby  of  me,  Lilly.  You  see,  I'd  never 
been  coddled  in  my  life — all  those  years  of  struggle  on 
my  own.  Well  I  just  turned  soft  and  he  loved  to 


282  STAR  DUST 

baby  me.  Why,  when  I  went  back  to  bookkeeping 
I  had  to  learn  it  all  over  like  a  beginner — that's  how 
wrapped  up  I  became  in  that  little  home  of  ours!" 

"How  long,  Mrs.  Blair,  did  you  live  in  it?" 

"Fourteen  months  and  five  days.  It  was  a  tiny 
place  and  we  didn't  have  much  to  spend  at  first,  but 
what  I  had  I  managed  to  good  advantage.  Lon 
hated  makeshift.  He  couldn't  get  the  fun  out  of  sim 
plicity  that  I  could.  He  wanted  to  dress  me  up.  He 
wanted  a  big  house.  Big.  Everything  big.  That 
was  his  undoing.  That's  what  they  called  him  in 
the  Ring,  I  learned  later,  'Gentleman  Lon.'  And  I 
never  knew  there  was  a  Ring!  Never  knew  the 
filthy  inside  workings  of  the  graft  game  existed. 
That's  the  way  he  protected  me  from  everything 
ugly — from  poverty.  Me,  that  had  never  been  pro 
tected  from  either.  O  God!  if  he'd  only  been 
truthful  with  me. those  last  few  months.  I — I  can't 
talk  about  it— I—" 

"Then  don't,  dear  Mrs.  Blair,  I  didn't  mean 
to—" 

"He  began  bringing  home  more  money  than  was 
natural,  but  he  always  explained  it — a  tip  from  a 
bucket  shop  on  his  beat — extra  duty.  If  I  had  been 
right  strong  those  days  I  might  have  suspected. 
Once  he  walked  the  floor  all  night,  said  it  was  a  tooth 
ache,  my  poor  boy  !^nd  let  me  fix  a  hot-water  bottle 
for  him.  Then  two  n}en  came  one  evening  and  there 
was  some  loud  talk  d()wn  in  the  parlor  and  I  heard 
words  like  'squeal'  and  'gangsters.'  .He  told  me 
when  he  came  upstairs  that  one  of  them  was  Eckstein. 
But  how  was  I  to  know*  who  Eckstein  was?  Didn't, 
until  I  heard  it  was  he  who  had  been — shot.  I —  You 
see,  the  captain  bad  closed  in  on  Eckstein's  place 
because  of  a  personal  grudge*,  and  Eckstein  came 


STAR  DUST  283 

running  to  Lon  to  save  him.  Threatened  to  squeal 
on  Lon — on  the  whole  business — if  he  didn't.  Lon 
was  hot-headed — got  frightened — lost  his  head.  O 
God!  I  don't  know  what — never  will  know — " 

-Know— what?" 

"That  evening  he  stayed  home  and  helped  me  fix 
up  the  nursery.  Yes,  I  was  expecting  in  the  spring. 
That's  why  he  was  so  for  keeping  things  from  me.  We 
painted  the  woodwork  white  and  gave  a  couple  of 
coats  to  a  little  brown  crib  I  had  picked  up  second 
hand.  He  was  for  buying  an  enameled  one  on 
casters — he  loved  the  best.  Next  night — next  night 
— he — didn't  come  home — and  at  eight  o'clock  the 
following  morning  the  extras  were  on  the  street — 
about  the  killing.  Even  then  I  didn't  tie  up — Lon 
and  Eckstein.  O  God!  God!  how  could  I—" 

"Tie  up  what?    Who?" 

"He  was  a  cat's-paw,  Lilly.  Never  believe  other 
wise.  My  boy  was  caught  and  trapped  in  the  filthy 
cesspool  of  politics.  There  are  men  in  this  city — 
men  whom  I  named  at  the  trial,  all  the  good  it  did 
me,  living  and  prospering  for  doing  worse  than  my 
boy  died  for.  You  wouldn't  know  of  my  boy,  Lilly; 
you  were  too  young  then.  The  whole  country  knew 
him,  eleven  years  ago.  Lon  Elaine.  It's  easier  Blair; 
no  questions  asked.  It  was  the  beginning  of  a  clean 
up  that  my  boy  blazed  the  way  for.  He  went  to  the 
gallows,  Lilly — my  boy — " 

"No!  No!" 

"He  died  a  gunman.  Thank  God  his  child  was 
born  dead.  But  he  lies  in  my  heart,  Lilly,  like  a  saint 
washed  clean.  He  sinned  for  love,  and  because 
stronger  forces  than  he  wanted  him  for  a  tool.  May 
every  man  on  his  jury  live  to  carry  that  truth  to  his 
grave.  He  killed  in  self-defense  and  he  sinned  for 

19 


284  STAR  DUST 

love.  I'll  exonerate  him  in  a  play,  yet!  I  will!  I'll 
tell  them!  I'll  tell  them!" 

Told  without  hysteria,  her  tale  had  almost  a  dron 
ing  quality  on  the  twilight.  She  was  grim  in  her 
tragedy,  and  her  lips  were  as  twisted  and  dried  as 
paint  tubes,  yet  Lilly  crept  closer,  laying  her  cheek 
rather  timidly  against  the  corduroyed  one. 

"Ida  Blair,"  she  said.  "I  see  now.  'The  Web'! 
Oh—  Ida  Blair." 

They  fell  silent,  the  two  of  them,  dry-eyed,  cheek 
to  cheek,  drowning  back  into  a  long  twilight  that 
finally  blackened. 

"I  don't  know  why  I've  told  you  all  this.  It's 
been  ten  years  since  I've  talked  it.  But  your  telling 
me  that  you  threw  it  all  over — that  little  home  out 
there,  and  a  man  that  was  driving  down  deeply  the 
stakes  of  his  home — threw  it  over  because  the 
black  spot  from  his  collar  button  made  you  feel 
hysterical —  Oh,  I  tell  you  there  is  a  grin  through 
the  scheme  of  things.  A  laugh.  What  old  man 
Metz  used  to  call  a  belly  laugh." 

Chin  cupped  in  hand,  Lilly  stared  out  into  a  back 
yard  that  was  filled  with  the  tulle  of  winding  mist, 
the  lighted  rear  windows  of  the  houses  opposite 
blurry,  as  if  seen  through  tears. 

"Just  the  same,"  she  said,  her  lips  in  the  straight 
line  peculiar  to  this  not  infrequent  reiteration,  "I'd 
do  the  same  if  I  had  it  to  do  over  again." 

"How  do  you  know  that  some  day  your  child  is 
not  going  to  turn  upon  you  with  the  bitterest 
reproaches?" 

"She  won't;  she's  too  much  like  me.  That  is  why 
it  is  going  to  be  something  sublime  to  have  the 
rearing  of  her.  It  is  going  to  be  like  living  my  life 
over  again  the  way  I  once  dreamed  it.  I  know  even 


STAR  DUST  285 

now  what  she  wants,  before  she  puckers  up  her  little 
lips  for  it.  Of  course,  you  are  right — he — they  have 
the  right  to  know.  But  take  the  shine  off  that 
creature?  Clip  the  wings  of  her  spirit?  Fatten  her 
little  soul  back  there  in  that  sluggish  environment? 
She'd  hate  it  as  I  hated!  Oh  you  must  have  seen 
for  yourself  that  Sunday  I  took  you  out  there.  The 
little  live  stars  in  her  eyes.  The  plunge  and  rear  to 
her  little  body.  Never!  She's  mine!  We  two!  Out 
on  the  open  road!" 

"I  shouldn't  want  the  responsibility  of  rearing  my 
child  in  a  paid  institution  if  I  had  better  to  offer.'* 

"I  haven't  better!  I've  proved  to  myself,  Mrs. 
Blair,  to  what  limit  I  would  go  to — to  save  her  from 
back  there.  Proved  it — horribly!  No — no,  she's 
mine.  No,  not  even  mine.  She  belongs  to  herself. 
As  soon  as  her  little  brain  is  ready  to  take  it  in,  she 
shall  decide;  but  until  then — she's  mine." 

"Lilly — Lilly — a  father  ignorant  of  his  child!" 

1  'They'd  suck  us  back,  I  tell  you !  Self-preservation 
even  against  family  is  a  first  law  of  life!  Owls  eat 
their  young !  So  can  human  beings  feed  on  the  thing 
they  love.  It's  not  these  first  years  would  matter. 
But  ten,  fifteen,  twenty  years  from  now.  They 
would  hitch  her  vision,  not  to  a  star,  but  to  a — a  tin 
dipper.  You  don't  understand.  You  know  it  seems 
to  me,  Mrs.  Blair,  that  most  people,  women,  anyhow, 
are  like  great  big  houses  with  only  half  the  rooms  in 
use.  The  mentality  closed  up  and  musty  from  disuse 
because  they  have  never  found  or  made  the  keys.  I 
want  my  child  to  live  roundly — in  all  her  mental 
rooms.  What  is  the  use  closing  off  any  part  of  a 
house  that  was  meant  for  light  and  sunshine?  I 
want  her  to  know  the  world  she  lives  in  from  attic 
to  cellar.  The  good  from  the  bad,  so  that,  knowing 


286  STAR  DUST 

the  bad,  she  can  love  more  the  good.    The  right  to 
live!" 

"You're  for  woman's  rights.  You're  one  of  those 
suffragists." 

"I  guess  I  am  if  woman's  rights  mean  more 
breadth,  more  beauty,  more  realization  of  our 
latent  selves.  Oh,  I  don't  know  what  I  mean.  That's 
been  my  curse." 

In  the  darkness  Mrs.  Blair  put  up  a  hand  to  the 
sheen  of  Lilly's  flowing  hair. 

"You  poor  child!    You  funny  girl.    You  need — " 

"What?" 

"The  right  man  to  sweep  you  off  your  feet." 

"I  knew  you  were  going  to  say  that.  No,  you're 
wrong.  I'm  not  essentially  a  man's  woman,  Mrs. 
Blair.  Sex  isn't  even  as  big  a  part  of  my  life  as  it  is 
of  most  women's.  I  can't  flirt.  I  haven't  an  ounce 
of  coquetry  in  me.  I  think  I  almost  hate — " 

"You  mean  you  hate  what  your  experience  has 
been.  The  right  man  for  you,  dear,  a  man  with 
enough  of  the  materialist  to  hold  you  in  check  and 
enough  of  youth  and  vision  and  ideals  to  soar  with 
you.  No,  no,  you  don't  hate  him,  Lilly." 

"Why— why— who?" 

"Oh,  I've  seen  it  flash  between  the  two  of  you. 
I've  watched  it  being  silently  born.  Lilly  child, 
look  at  me!" 

"Why,  Mrs.  Blair!  Why— Mrs.  Blair !  I've  never 
seen  him  outside  of  office  hours  in  my  life.  I  never 
laid  eyes  on  him  until  he  walked  in  that  night  from 
Chicago.  Why,  I — I'm  a  married  woman!  He's 
younger — than  I — a  year !  He  knows  there  is  Zoe. 
He  sent  her  up  a  little  hobbyhorse  from  the  property 
room.  Why,  Mrs.  Blair — of  course  if  you  look  at  me 
like— that— " 


STAR  DUST  287 

She  was  suddenly  in  the  older  woman's  arms,  a 
passionate,  a  peony  red  flooding  her  face  and  waving 
down  her  words.  She  was  all  for  further  resistance, 
but  her  denial  had  taken  on  an  archness  for  which 
she  somehow  blushed. 

Besides,  it  was  suddenly  delicious  to  huddle  there, 
tingling  in  the  darkness. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THERE  were  a  quality  of  voice,  of  eye,  and  a  fine, 
upstanding  rush  of  sooty  black  hair  which  he 
tried  to  japan  down  with  a  pair  of  swift  military 
brushes,  in  the  way  of  woman's  safest  judgment  of 
Bruce  Visigoth. 

By  the  quieter  kinetics  of  his  own  sex,  he  was  a 
man's  man.  He  commingled  easily  in  his  clubs,  a 
university,  a  Mask  and  Wig,  a  Long  Island  Canoe, 
and  the  Gramercy.  Preceding  his  brother  in  this 
last  and  later  proposing  him. 

The  resemblance  between  the  two  was  neither  of 
form  nor  of  feature.  Rather,  it  was  fleeting  as  a  wing ; 
in  fact,  was  just  that.  There  was  something  in  the 
batting  of  the  eye,  a  slant  of  lid,  that  showed  the 
mysterious  corpuscles  of  the  same  blood  asserting 
themselves.  Yet  it  was  more  the  likeness  of  father 
and  son;  the  older  man  shorter,  wider  of  thigh,  and 
with  none  of  that  fleet,  rather  sensitive  lift  of  head, 
partly  because  his  neck  was  shorter  and  not  upflung 
as  if  so  sensitive  to  the  very  rush  of  air  that  the 
flanges  of  the  nostrils  quivered. 

There  was  a  more  nervous  organization  to  Bruce 
that  gave  him  something  of  the  startled  look  of  wild 
horse,  particularly  with  the  laid-back  Mercury  wing 
effect  to  his  hair. 

In  anger  Robert  had  a  r6pertoire  of  oaths  that 
stained  the  air  like  the  trail  of  a  wounded  shark,  his 
pupils  receding  to  points  and  his  mouth  pulling  to 
an  oblique. 


STAR  DUST  289 

Bruce,  if  anything,  whitened  and  quieted.  He 
had  once,  with  hardly  more  than  a  lightning  lunge, 
broken  a  truck  driver's  wrist  in  an  office  altercation 
over  some  manhandled  scenery,  and  gone  home 
rather  sick  because  the  fellow's  opened  cheek  had 
bled  down  over  his  desk. 

His  office  manner  was  clipped,  brisk,  and  highly 
impersonal.  He  cultivated  a  little  mustache  to  en 
hance  that  manner,  yet  the  two  sixteen-year-old 
girls  who  pasted  clippings  into  scrap  books  spitted 
their  curls  for  him,  and,  since  his  advent,  even  Ida 
Blair  had  discarded  her  eye  shade. 

In  moments  of  high  pressure  he  stuttered  slightly, 
grinding  and  whirring  over  a  sibilant  like  a  stalled 
tire.  Upon  one  occasion  that  was  to  be  memorable 
Lilly  sat  between  the  brothers,  notebook  in  lap,  her 
head  bent  to  dodge  the  fusillade  of  high  words 
passing  over  it. 

It  was  her  third  year  in  a  firm  that  had  not  slipped 
a  cog.  She  had  likened  its  growth  to  her  child's — 
fine — sturdy — normal.  There  were  seven  theaters 
now,  lying  at  points  between  New  York  and  Denver, 
a  quickening  nervous  system  of  them  with  New  York 
its  ganglia.  An  eighth  had  just  been  acquired, 
through  which  transaction  she  had  endured  with  a 
vicarious  anxiety  that  amazed  her.  There  had  been 
arduous  after  office  hours  of  deed,  mortgage,  and 
bill  of  sale,  and  to  growing  demands  had  invested 
herself  with  power  of  notary  public,  proclaiming  the 
same  in  a  neat  sign  above  her  desk. 

It  was  the  day  of  the  consummation  of  this  last 
deal,  a  Bronx  Family  Theater,  in  fact,  that  occurred 
between  the  brothers  one  of  those  bloodless  chasms 
no  wider  than  a  sword  blade,  but  hilt-deep. 

After  a  morning  series  of  conferences  with  two 


290  STAR  DUST 

representatives  of  Philadelphia  capital  and  the 
vice  president  of  a  Surety  Guarantee  Company, 
Lilly  in  her  new  capacity  thumping  down  on  docu 
ment  after  document  that  slid  beneath  her  punch, 
the  transfer  was  completed,  and,  bursting  out  into 
the  corridor,  rather  hoyendish  with  elation,  she 
drew  up  shortly  to  avoid  collision  with  Robert 
Visigoth,  himself  still  warm  with  the  occasion. 

"Well,"  he  said,  slapping  the  side  pockets  of  his 
waistcoat,  "we  pulled  it  off,  didn't  we?"  The  pos 
sibility  of  an  evening  train  back  to  Chicago  and  of  a 
big  deal  creditably  accomplished  quickening  his  well- 
being. 

"Indeed  we  did!"  she  replied,  heartily. 

More  and  more,  on  these  intermittent  visits  of  his, 
the  icy  edge  of  her  self -consciousness  was  beginning 
to  thaw.  Probably  because  the  years  had  done  their 
sebaceous  worst  with  him.  Somehow  he  had  receded 
behind  the  dumpling  of  himself. 

"Have  you  seen  this  one  of  Rufus  II,  Mrs.  Penny? 
I  want  to  show  you  a  picture  of  a  youngster  with 
some  kick  to  him.  Look  at  those  legs,  will  you!" 

He  had  married,  three  years  previous,  a  Miss 
Hindle  Higginbothom,  the  only  child  of  a  Chicago 
leaf -lard  magnate  of  household-word  kind  of  fame, 
and  brother-in-law  to  his  father's  one-time  law 
partner,  O.  J.  Higginbothom. 

For  three  years  now,  as  if  caught  in  a  suet  destiny, 
he  had  lived  in  the  Lake  Shore  mansion  of  his  father- 
in-law,  making  the  Western  city  his  official  head 
quarters  for  as  long  as  seven-  and  eight -month 
periods.  Ten,  the  year  his  first  child  was  born. 

Often  his  wife  accompanied  him  on  his  trips  to 
New  York.  She  was  an  enormous  girl,  looking  ten 
years  her  senior,  but  with  that  fat  kind  of  prettiness 


STAR  DUST  291 

which  asserts  itself  so  often  in  clear  skin  and  apple 
cheeks. 

Her  capitulation  to  matrimony,  rather  than  to 
Robert  Visigoth,  was  complete.  She  was  one  of  those 
inevitable  mothers  with  little  broody  household 
ways  that  no  immense  wealth  could  dissipate.  The 
first  year  there  were  twins.  One  of  them  died,  but 
annually  thereafter,  until  there  were  six,  she  pre 
sented  a  chuckling  grandfather  with  a  literal  heir. 
Literal,  because  on  each  such  nativity  old  Rufus 
Higginbothom,  who  had  found  it  easier  to  make 
millions  than  to  learn  to  write,  signed  his  famous 
"X"  to  a  five-hundred-thousand-dollar  check  of 
greeting  to  the  new  arrival. 

Robert  Visigoth  carried  photographs  of  his  babies 
and  wife  in  a  leather  pocket  portfolio,  referring  to  it 
constantly  and  with  a  great  show  of  casualness, 
"Oh,  by  the  way,  have  I  ever  shown  you — " 

Lilly  returned  this  to  him  now,  with  a  rush  of 
amused  pleasure  at  the  bouncing  rotundities  of  his 
newest  born. 

"He's  a  darling!" 

"He  was  a  little  croupy  before  I  left  and  I'm 
taking  that  six-three  for  Chicago,  Mrs.  Penny,  and 
I  wonder  if  you  would  do  something  for  me.  I'm 
caught  empty-handed.  Would  you  take  a  cab  down 
to  Ryan  and  Steger's  (the  wife  says  they  are  the 
best  for  stouts)  and  select  me  a  couple  of  right  nobby 
waists  for  her?  Get  the  best,  and  you  know  pretty 
much  about  size.  The  largest — you  know.  A  few 
pairs  of  black  silk  stockings,  extra  quality  and  extra 
size,  would  be  nice,  too.  It  would  save  me  con 
siderable  rush." 

'Til  do  my  best." 

"Well,  that  will  be  a  darn  sight  better  than  the 


292  STAR  DUST 

wife's  when  it  comes  to  clothes.  She  gets  them 
tubby.  Pick  out  something  slick — on  the  order  of 
what  you've  got  on." 

"Why,  this  is  only  a  two-dollar  blouse!" 

He  flipped  her  a  one-hundred-dollar  bill. 

"Don't  come  back  with  any  change." 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  this  day  which  had 
transmitted  its  tremor  of  large  transaction  through 
out  the  offices,  long  since  partitioned  off  into  ground- 
glass  cells  and  softened  with  sound-eating  rugs, 
Lilly  was  summoned  to  the  office  of  R.  J.,  carrying 
with  her  the  box  containing  her  purchases.  Bruce 
was  there,  too,  pacing  between  windows. 

He  met  her  up  with  an  immediate  inquiry. 

"Mrs.  Penny,  did  you  go  up  to  see  that  'June 
Blossom'  sketch  last  night?" 

"Yes.    I'm  writing  my  report  on  it." 

Constantly  now  requests  like  this  were  tossed  in 
the  form  of  a  pair  of  tickets  on  her  desk. 

"Well?" 

"Sweet,  clean,  and  obvious." 

He  nodded  in  a  short  corroborative  manner  he 
had,  drawing  up  alongside  the  desk. 

"Take  a  telegram,  please.  'Mr.  Sam  Sadler, 
People's  Theater,  Cleveland,  Ohio.  Book  "June 
Blossom"  for  week  of  nineteenth. '  And  now  if  you'll 
sign  and  stamp  this  mortgage  after  my  brother  and 
I  sign." 

The  box  proved  cumbersome,  so  before  she  took 
up  pen  she  held  it  out  to  R.  J. 

"The  blouses,"  she  said.  "There  is  a  blue  and  a 
maroon.  I  hope  Mrs.  Visigoth  is  going  to  like  them. 
And  here  is  the  change." 

"That's  mighty  fine,"  he  said,  smiling  until  a 
second  chin  appeared.  "A  trinket  or  two  up  his 


STAR  DUST  293 

sleeve  gives  a  fellow  a  right  to  ring  his  own  door 
bell." 

He  reached  then,  fumbling  at  the  hasps  of  his  alli 
gator  bag  which  stood  by,  opening  it  out  and  stooping 
to  insert  the  package. 

Simultaneously,  as  the  mouth  of  that  valise 
yawned,  the  two  men  leaped  forward  so  that  their 
heads  came  together  resoundingly  and  absurdly,  but 
not  before  the  bag  had  exposed  its  surface  articles: 
a  pair  of  tortoise-shell  military  brushes,  a  packet  of 
documents,  and  a  precious  silver  and  lapis-lazuli  box 
about  the  dimensions  of  a  playing  card,  the  kind 
usually  dedicated  to  such  elusive  addenda  as  stamps, 
collar  buttons,  or  sewing  box  in  a  lady's  overnight 
bag. 

From  where  she  sat,  shorthand  book  open,  pencil 
poised,  Lilly  had  observed  it  quite  casually,  although 
it  was  some  time  before  she  could  co-ordinate  it  with 
what  ensued. 

Suddenly  there  was  the  flash  of  the  two  men  to 
their  feet,  R.  J.,  an  ox-blood  surging  into  his  face, 
kicking  shut  the  valise,  his  brother  whitening  and 
quivering. 

"Why  did  you  lie  about  that  box!" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Robert,  through  his 
teeth,  his  color  so  livid  that  teeth  and  eyeballs 
seemed  to  whiten. 

His  voice  like  the  splitting  of  silk,  Bruce  plunged 
down  a  pointing  forefinger  toward  the  bag. 

"Open  that  up,"  he  said. 

"The  hell  I  will." 

With  one  swift  stroke  from  the  lighter  and  lither 
of  them,  the  bag  was  on  its  side,  spilling  its  contents 
of  tortoise-shell  hair  brushes  and  the  silver  box,  Bruce 
standing  above  it,  tightening  of  jaw  and  knuckles. 


294  STAR  DUST 

"Liar!"  he  cried.    "Liar!" 

To  Lilly  it  seemed  that  out  of  these  years  of  ap 
parently  placid  relationship,  with  something  avun 
cular,  even  of  father  and  son  in  it,  here  were  suddenly 
and  terribly  Cain  and  Abel,  elemental  with  an  itch 
for  each  other's  throat. 

"Say  that  again,  by  God!  and  you'll  regret  it." 

* '  Liar !  Liar ! "  he  reiterated  over  and  over,  stand 
ing  and  towering  over  the  spilling  bag.  "Why  did 
you  lie  to  me  about  that  box?  Three  years  ago  I 
asked  you  for  it.  The  spring  after  her  death.  Just 
before  the  auction.  Wasn't  it  sufficient  that  I  let 
you  and  Pauline  settle  her  personal  effects  between 
you?  Only  that  little  box — somehow  I  wanted  it. 
Father  gave  it  to  her  the  first  Christmas  of  their 
marriage.  She  always  kept  it  on  her  table.  You 
were  welcome  to  all  the  rest  between  you.  All  I 
asked  for  was  that  little  box  of  mother's.  And  to 
think  that  yesterday,  the  anniversary  of  her  death,  I 
mentioned  it  again.  Liar !  Liar !  Lost !  Never  been 
found  among  her  effects!  Bah!  Liar!  It's  a  little 
thing,  a  trinket  that  she  loved,  but  I  wanted  it. 
You  hear,  I  wanted  that  trinket.  She  used  to  keep 
jelly  beans  in  it  for  me  when  I  came  in  from  school. 
It's  little — the  littlest  thing  that  ever  happened  be 
tween  us,  but  it's  the  meanest,  and  God  knows  in 
my  dealings  with  you  all  my  life  there  have  been 
enough  of  the  little  meannesses  to  contend  with. 
But  you  have  won  your  last  mean  little  advantage 
outside  this  office.  You  and  I  can  play  the  cards 
in  business,  particularly  when  we  play  them  six  hun 
dred  miles  apart  and  where  it  is  a  case  of  man  to 
man  out  on  the  mat.  But  outside  this  office  we  play 
quits !  There  aren't  going  to  be  any  more  nasty  little 
personal  issues  with  you,  because  there  aren't  going 


STAR  DUST  295 

to  be  any  at  all.  You're  a  liar  and  a  hundred  per 
cent  bigger  one  over  that  little  trinket  of  a  box  than 
if  the  stakes  had  been  bigger.  You  hate  to  give, 
unless  it's  so  much  for  so  much.  Your  sense  of  fair 
ness  is  vile!  It's  penny  mean!  Liar!" 

With  a  lowering  of  head  Robert  lunged  then,  his 
lips  dragged  to  an  oblique,  threads  of  red  cut  in  his 
eyeballs. 

"Eat  those  words  or,  by  God!  I'll  ram  them  down 
your  throat." 

"The  hell  I  will." 

"Gentlemen!" 

They  were  crowded  against  the  door,  their  breath 
ing  flowing  against  each  other's  face,  gestures 
uplifted. 

Her  eyes  black  and  her  notebook  crushed  up  to 
her,  Lilly's  voice  rang  out  like  the  crack  of  a  whip, 
springing  them  apart.  There  were  a  whiteness  and 
a  sense  of  emptiness  upon  her  and  she  wanted  to 
crumple  up  rather  sickly  and  cry,  as  if  the  blows  had 
been  diverted  to  her. 

They  were  suddenly  and  quiveringly  themselves 
again,  the  panther  laid. 

"You'll  rue  this,"  said  Robert,  walking  back  with 
some  uncertainty  of  step  to  his  desk,  his  eyes  still 
slits. 

Bruce  lifted  the  box  rather  tenderly,  even  with 
the  greeny  pallor  of  his  rage  still  out  and  his  features 
straining  for  composure. 

"I'll  have  it  valued  and  send  you  a  check — " 

"Damn  you!"  With  snarl-shaped  lips  the  older 
brother  lunged  again,  this  time  their  bodies  meeting 
and  swaying  for  clutch. 

"Bruce!" 

The  use  of  his  given  name,  the  curdled  quality  to 


296  STAR  DUST 

her  voice,  had  their  way.  There  was  a  moment  of 
blank  staring  between  the  two  men,  of  Bruce  placing 
the  box  gently  on  the  desk  and  walking  out  without 
slamming  the  door,  and  Robert  sinking  down  into 
the  swivel  chair,  trying  to  bring  the  oblique  pull  of 
his  lips  back  to  straight. 

"Get  out,"  he  said,  without  looking  at  her. 

She  did,  tiptoeing  and  fighting  down  the  sense  of 
sickness. 

And  thus,  out  of  a  bauble  of  silver  and  lapis  lazuli, 
was  reared  a  tower  of  silence  between  these  brothers 
as  high  as  fifteen  years  is  long.  Large  affairs  for  their 
joint  unraveling  lay  ahead,  dramatic  in  their  magni 
tude.  The  Union  Square  Family  Theater  was  very 
presently  to  become  first  a  tawdry,  then  a  discarded 
link  in  the  glittering  chain  of  playhouses  that  was 
to  gird  the  country. 

Toward  this  end  R.  J.  and  Bruce  Visigoth  steered, 
with  an  impeccable  oneness  of  purpose,  the  des 
tinies  of  an  enterprise  audacious  in  its  concept  and 
ultimately  to  be  spectacular  in  its  fulfillment. 

But  outside  the  sharply  defined  inclosures  of  their 
business  lives,  the  brothers  went  down  into  a  word 
less  vale  of  fifteen  years  of  estrangement,  not  in 
enmity,  but  rather  as  a  hatpin,  plunged  through  the 
heart,  can  kill,  bloodlessly. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WHEN  Lilly  put  on  her  hat  outside  in  the  now 
darkening  and  deserted  offices,  it  seemed  to 
her  that  the  roar  of  men's  passions  was  a  gale 
through  the  silence.  Quite  irrelevantly  she  was 
clutched  with  a  terror  of  catastrophe.  The  pos 
sibility  of  fire!  Only  last  week  there  had  been  a 
devastating  one  in  a  children's  hospital  out  in  Colum 
bus,  Ohio.  She  beat  down  these  flames  of  fear. 
Yet  what  strange  and  horrible  passions  lay  just  a 
scratch  beneath  the  surface  of  the  day-by-days. 
A  little  girl  aged  four  had  once  been  found  battered 
and  dead  beside  a  farm  hand's  dinner  pail  in  St. 
Louis  County !  Suddenly  all  the  faces  she  could  con 
jure  began  to  form  staring  circles  around  her — the 
Visigoths.  Minnie  Dupree.  Ida  Blair.  Auchinloss. 
Phonzie.  Phonzie ! 

She  decided  to  walk  fast  and  long  and  ran  down 
stairs  out  into  the  little  areaway  that  ran  like  an 
alley  from  stage  entrance  to  sidewalk.  A  newly  in 
stalled  nickelodeon,  adjoining,  was  already  lighted, 
throwing  out  a  hard  white  shine  and  tinned  music 
at  the  instance  of  five  cents  in  the  slot.  In  the 
glaring  pallor  Bruce  Visigoth  was  suddenly  at  her 
side,  his  felt  hat  bunched  up  in  his  hand  and  his  hair 
wet-looking,  as  if  drenched  with  perspiration. 

"I  couldn't  let  you  go  without  apologizing,  Mrs. . 
Penny." 

She  smiled  with  lips  that  would  pull  to  the  nerv 
ous  impulse  to  cry. 


298  STAR  DUST 

"The  idea!"  she  said,  feeling  the  words  tawdry 
and  provincial  as  they  came. 

"It  was  my  fault  for  permitting  it  to  happen  in 
the  presence  of  a  third  party — you  especially." 

"Those  things  cannot  always  be  avoided,"  again 
biting  down  into  her  tongue  for  its  banality. 

"Will  you  forget  it  as  if  it  had  never  occurred?" 

She  turned  her  gaze,  that  could  be  so  singularly 
clear,  full  upon  him. 

"It  is  already  forgotten." 

Strangely  enough  and  with  unspoken  accord  they 
took  to  walking  then  at  a  clip  that  was  almost  a  rush 
and  created  quite  a  wind  in  their  faces.  It  was  their 
first  meeting  out  of  office  and  here  they  were  half 
running  through  a  cool  and  winey  half  darkness  and 
utterly  without  destination. 

She  stopped  abruptly  at  West  Fourteenth  Street, 
beyond  the  thunder  of  the  Sixth  Avenue  Elevated  and 
where  the  sky  line  began  to  dip  down  toward  the  piers. 

"Good  night,"  she  said,  throwing  back  her  head 
to  look  up  at  him  from  under  the  low  brim  of  sailor. 

He  whipped  off  his  resiliency  soft  hat,  hugging  it 
under  one  arm. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "of  course,"  mopping  at  his 
forehead  and  so  unstrung  that  she  could  have 
laughed.  "I'm  sorry.  I  beg  your  pardon.  Is  this 
where  you  live?" 

They  were  before  a  greasily  lighted  taxidermist's 
window  of  mounted  raccoon,  fox  terrior  with  legs 
curled  for  running,  and  an  owl  on  a  branch. 

"No,"  she  said,  eying  the  owl,  "I  don't  live  here*" 
and  were  both  off  into  a  gale  of  laughter  that  swept 
down  the  barriers  of  self-restraint. 

"We've  both  been  walking  it  off,"  she  said,  easily. 
"Here  is  where  I  turn  for  home." 


STAR  DUST  299 

He  caught  her  hand. 

"D-don't  go.  I'd  be  so  grateful — so  grateful  if 
you'd  have  dinner  with  me  to-night." 

"Nonsense!"  she  said,  amazed  at  her  fluency  of 
manner.  "You're  a  bit  unstrung,  that's  all.  Look 
in  at  your  club  or  a  show." 

"Please." 

"All  right,"  she  said,  suddenly,  on  a  little  click  of 
teeth.  "I'll  come — this  once." 

"You're  a  brick,"  he  cried,  releasing  her  hand  with 
a  grateful  pressure. 

She  was  excited  out  of  all  proportions  to  the  event, 
flushing  up  with  a  sense  of  adventure  and  crowded 
moment. 

He  began  to  scan  for  a  cab. 

"Let's  walk." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  bringing  one  down  with  a  cane. 
"We're  out  on  a  party." 

"But—" 

"No  buts,"  helping  her  in  and  climbing  in  after. 
"Waldorf." 

"I'm  too  shirtwaisted." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind.  You're  as  trim  as  a  dime. 
I  like  those  waists  you  wear.  They  make  you 
look  smooth — shining.  That's  it,  you've  a  shine 
to  you." 

The  odor  of  another  drive  in  an  open  cab  through 
this  same  snarl  of  traffic  was  winding  about  her  like 
mist.  That  doctor's  outer  office  with  its  row  of 
thoughtful  chairs.  Rembrandt's  "Night- Watch. " 
'fhat  frenzied  moment  of  finding  the  lock!  The 
run  up  two  flights.  She  sat  forward  on  the  slippery 
leather  seat. 

"I — I  shouldn't  have  come." 

"If  you're  serious,  of  course  I'll  take  you  home. 


300  STAR  DUST 

But  I  can't  tell  you  how  much  I  want  you  not  to 
feel  that  way." 

She  sat  back  again. 

"I'm  behaving  like  a  shop  girl." 

They  both  laughed  again  and  complete  thaw  set  in. 

He  selected  one  of  the  lesser  dining  rooms  where 
the  formality  of  evening  clothes  was  still  the  rule, 
but  here  and  there  a  couple  like  themselves,  in  street 
attire.  It  was  her  first  New  York  meal  that  was  not 
read  off  a  badly  thumbed  menu  and  eaten  off  thick- 
lipped  china.  A  stringed  orchestra  played  the  Duo 
of  Parsifal  and  Kundry,  which  was  enough  to  set  the 
blood  rocking  in  her  veins  and  some  of  its  bombastic 
maternal  passion  to  dye  her  face. 

He  ordered  a  man's  dinner:  Clear  soup  with  crou 
tons.  Long  oysters  on  the  half  shell.  A  thick  steak 
with  potatoes  deliciously  concocted  beneath  a  crust 
of  cheese.  Light  wine.  Ices  in  long  glasses  as  slender 
as  the  neck  of  a  crane.  Turkish  coffee  brewed  at  the 
table  over  alcohol. 

She  sighed  out  finally,  warm  with  well-being: 
"I  didn't  realize  how  deadly  tired  I  was  of  just- 
grub.  You  see,  it's  the  first  time  I've  dined  at  a 
first-class  place  since  I'm  in  New  York." 

"You  don't  mean  that." 

She  nodded,  smiling. 

"I  think  I'm  as  surprised  as  you  are.  It's  just  one 
of  the  things  that  never  occurred  to  me." 

He  regarded  her  for  a  long  moment  and  without 
smile. 

"You  queer,  queer  girl." 

"If  anyone  tells  me  that  again,  I'll  begin  to  be 
lieve  it  is  my  inevitable  epitaph." 

' '  No  epitaph  is  inevitable.    It  is  what  you  write  it. ' ' 

She  leaned  her  chin  into  the  cup  of  her  palm. 


STAR  DUST  301 

"Do  you  think  that?" 

"Yes,  and  therefore  yours  should  embody  courage 
and  dauntless  idealism  and  love  of  truth." 

She  looked  off  through  the  atmosphere  that  was 
talcy  with  soft  odors  and  the  warm  perfume  of  bare 
shoulders. 

"Love  of  truth,"  she  said,  her  eyes  lit,  "would  be 
enough." 

"Love  of  you,  would  be  an  epitaph  to  my  liking." 

She  was  afraid  he  could  see  the  little  beating  at  her 
throat  and  wanted  to  be  facetious.  Poor  Lilly,  to 
whom  persiflage  came  none  too  readily. 

"Now,  you're  making  sport  of  me." 

"Probably  it  is  a  case  of  laugh  that  I  may  not 
weep." 

"Even  tears  can  be  idle." 

"Or  idolizing." 

"I  suppose  I  am  to  surmise  over  the  quality  of 
yours?" 

"Well,  you  have  had  me  guessing  for  three  years. 
Mrs.  Penny.  Lilly!  I  can't  say  the  other,  it — won't 
s-say  itself." 

She  asked  her  question  with  a  cessation  of  her 
entire  being,  as  if  her  heart  had  missed  a  beat. 

' '  Hasn't — your — brother — told — you — anything  ?" 

"Oh  yes.  I  know  how  you  threw  over  the  pro 
fessional  end  of  it  for  what  you  decided  you  could 
do  better.  I  thought  that  pretty  plucky ;  so  many  of 
us  mistake  inflated  judgment  for  genius  and  stub 
bornness  for  perseverance,  when  that  same  perse 
verance  applied  to  the  job  within  one's  capacity  may 
lead  to  fine  fulfillment." 

"It's  good  to  hear  you  say  that." 

"But  that  is  about  all  I  do  know — Lilly — except, 
of  course,  that  there  is  a  youngster  and  somewhere  in 


302  STAR  DUST 

the  background  a  husband  whom  I  would  like  to 
meet  out  some  dark  night  when  I  happen  to  be  wear 
ing  my  favorite  pair  of  brass  knuckles." 

Something  nameless  and  shapeless  had  lifted; 
there  was  a  gavotte  to  her  heartbeat. 

"My  husband  was — is  a  good  man." 

"But  not  a  wise  one  if  he  couldn't  hold  a  creature 
like  you." 

"And  my  child !  You  talk  about  shine !  Of  course 
I  know  it  is  only  her  hair  and  eyes  and  now  her  little 
teeth,  but  sometimes  it  seems  to  me  there  is  an 
actual  iridescence  to  her.  Just  as  real  as  the  gold 
circlets  the  Italians  loved  to  paint  about  heads  they 
adored." 

"Your  head  is—" 

"You  see,  the  fuzz  of  her  curls  gives  that  effect. 
Those  new  stereopticon  views  that  move,  that  we 
used  on  the  bills  last  week,  show  it — that  aura  off  the 
hair.  Even  the  nurses  and  Mrs.  Dupree  have  re 
marked  Zoe's.  She's  really  the  show  child  of  the 
place,  you  know." 

"By  inheritance?" 

' '  No.  She's  only  like  me  about  the  eyes,  and  like — 
him — in  the  honey  color  of  her  hair.  Hers  is  as 
brilliant  and  curly  as  mine  is  dull  and  smooth.  And 
she's  so  big.  So  golden  and  burstingly  big.  I  can't 
look  at  her  without  fairly  gasping, '  can  this  be  mine ' !" 

"And  to  think  a  man  let  you  go,  once  he  had  you 
captured." 

"He  didn't  let  go.  I  went.  I  can  never  hear  him 
referred  to  slightingly  without  feeling  myself  a 
rotter  not  to  explain.  My  husband  was  so  terribly 
all  he  should  have  been,  Mr.  Visigoth.  As  decent 
and  God-fearing  a  man  as  ever — chewed  his  beef 
steak  with  his  temples." 


STAR  DUST  303 

He  threw  back  his  head  for  one  of  his  sustained 
laughs. 

"It's  horrid  of  me  to  belittle  him.  Let  me  explain 
further." 

"Lord!  you  don't  need  to.  I  know  everything 
about  him  there  is  to  know.  A  fine,  hefty  truck  horse 
trying  to  do  teamwork  with  a  red-nostriled  filly." 

"I — I  think  that's  it — I've  never  been  able  to  get 
it  across  to  anyone  before,  but — " 

"He  was  just  cast  wrong.  That's  all  there  is  to 
be  said  against  the  chap.  Right?" 

"Exactly." 

"I  understand.  In  a  way  I'm  in  a  similar  position 
with  my  own  brother.  Only,  I've  stuck  it  out  because 
it  was  my  mother's  great  wish  to  see  us  get  on  to 
gether.  After  what  you  have  observed  these  years, 
particularly  to-day,  none  of  this  can  be  particularly 
new  to  you." 

"I've  noticed,  of  course,  you — you're  different." 

"It  is  the  little  things  about  Robert  I  cannot 
swallow.  Never  could.  He  is  the  better  business 
man  and  keeps  my  head  out  of  the  clouds,  but  many 
a  time  I've  wanted  to  duck  these  years  of  apprentice 
ship  and  produce  the  things  I  believe  in.  I  will  some 
day,  but  that  is  another  story.  Robert  has  vision. 
His  sense  of  land  and  theater  values  is  unfailing. 
He—" 

"Well,  so  is  your  vision  just  as  unfailing  in  your 
work.  The  chain  didn't  even  begin  to  form  before 
you  took  over  the  booking  end." 

"He  has  fine  traits,  too.  Big  ones.  His  word  is 
his  bond.  He  has  business  foresight  and  integrity, 
but  somehow  it  is  his  little  meannesses.  I  remember 
once  in  my  father's  house  he  took  a  thrashing  for 
something  outrageous  he  was  not  guilty  of,  because 


3o4  STAR  DUST 

he  had  promised  some  youngster  across  the  way  he 
would  shield  him,  come  what  might,  and  somehow  I 
thought  it  pretty  fine  of  him.  But  another  time  he 
let  me  take  a  thrashing  for  something  he  had  done 
and  stood  by  without  opening  his  mouth.  It  is 
those  indescribable  smallnesses  in  his  make-up. 
Once  when  I  was  in  favor  of  branching  out  and  pro 
ducing  a  legitimate  three-act  play  which  I  happened 
to  run  across — a  rare  thing  from  the  French — he — 
well,  I  won't  go  into  it — but  this  thing — to-night — 
that  bauble  of  my  mother's — it — it's  the  climax  of 
a  lifetime  of  such  flea  bites — a  trifle  hardly  worth 
the  mentioning,  and  yet — it's  the  most  utter — the 
most  damnable — " 

There  was  a  half  crash  of  his  clenched  hand  among 
the  silver  and  a  rise  of  suffusing  red  up  out  of  the 
white  of  his  soft  collar. 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  I  didn't  mean  to  let  you  in 
for  any  more  of  it.  I'm  sorry.  And  after  you  were 
gracious  enough  to  come  alone,  too.  Come,  here  is  to 
making  this  little  party  a  gay  one." 

He  held  up  his  glass.    ' '  Here's  to  the  shining  child. ' ' 

"Oh!"  she  cried,  and  drank  quickly. 

"Like  it?" 

"Not  much.    It  burns." 

"You  should  see  your  eyes." 

"You  should  see  hers." 

"Whose?" 

"My  child's." 

"Do  you  know  what  I  should  have  done  in  your 
husband's  place?" 

"What?" 

"Harnessed  you,  too,  but  to  a  moonbeam." 

"I  once  knew  a  man  to  whom  I  never  spoke  ten 
words  in  all  my  life,  and  yet  I  always  imagined  he 


STAR  DUST  305 

might  have  talked  to  me  like  that — not  literally— 
not  in  terms  of  tiri  dippers." 

"Of  what,  you  queer,  queer  girl?" 

"Now  I  know  of  whom  you  remind  me!  An  old 
school-teacher  I  once  had.  Odd." 

"I  would  never  have  let  you  slip  my  harness 
through." 

"And  have  deprived  the  Amusement  Enterprise 
Company  of  my  austere  services!" 

' '  You've  been  invaluable.  Ninety  per  cent  of  your 
judgments  have  been  ninety-nine  per  cent  there!" 

"Luck." 

"Luck  nonsense!  Judgment  isn't  horseshoe- 
shaped." 

"I  love  it!  Feeling  the  public  pulse  for  what  it 
wants.  The  psychology  of  your  vaudeville  audience  is 
as  elementary  as  a  primer  and  as  intricate  as  life.  It 
is  a  bloodhound  when  it  comes  to  fetecSing  the  false 
from  the  true.  Take  that  little  sketch,  *  Trapped/ 
you  sent  me  out  to  see  last  week.  A  more  sophisti 
cated  audience  might  have  mistaken  its  brittle  epi 
grammatic  quality  for  brilliancy  and  its  flippancy 
for  cleverness.  But  not  your  ten-twenty-thirty's. 
In  real  life  a  husband  doesn't  psychanalyze  his 
wife's  lover.  He  horsewhips  him.  And  that  lovely 
blank- verse  fantasy  that  you  attempted  on  your  own. 
That  is  the  sort  of  thing  you  are  going  to  stand  for 
some  day  in  the  theater.  I  loved  your  wanting  it. 
But  right  now,  while  you  are  on  your  way  up  to  the 
goal,  is  where  I  come  in.  Sort  of  mediator  between 
your  ideals  and  the  box  office.  Of  course  you  loved 
the  fantasy.  So  did  I,  and  I  loved  your  wanting  to 
do  it.  But  it  took  vaudeville  just  one  performance 
to  decide  that  it  wasn't  ready  for  that  kind  of 
mysticism." 


3o6  STAR  DUST 

' '  And  you  forty  minutes. ' ' 

"You  would  never  have  backed  it  even  over  my 
O.  K." 

"Then  you  don't  realize  how  far  your  O.  K.  goes 
with  me." 

"What  is  this,"  she  smiled,  "a  mutual-admiration 
fete?" 

"I  don't  know,"  suddenly  leaning  toward  her, 
reddening.  "I  can  only  speak  for  myself.  Lilly — 
you're  wonderful — " 

She  chose  to  be  casual,  most  effectively,  too. 

"Indeed  it  is  mutual.  I  need  hardly  to  tell  you 
what  association  with  your  office  has  meant  to  me. 
The  romance  of  an  organization  like  yours.  The 
thrill  of  seeing  it  triple  proportions  in  these  few 
years.  The  fine  stimulating  something  that  comes 
with  the  acquisition  of  each  new  Amusement  Enter 
prise  Theater.  The  chats  we  have  had  over  plays, 
play  writing,  producing.  Your  own  fine  aim.  Oh, 
it  has  made  bearable  even  the  monotony  of  the  secre 
tarial  end  of  it!" 

"I  am  afraid  your  secretarial  services  are  about  to 
be  dispensed  with." 

She  placed  a  quick  hand  to  her  heart. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

He  flecked  his  cigar,  laughing  over  at  her. 

"You're  delicious.  What  could  I  mean  except 
that  you  have  outgrown  your  job?" 

"You— mean— " 

"I  mean  that  I  am  going  to  officially  place  you  in 
charge  of  the  booking  department  at — well,  your 
own  idea  of  salary." 

"I— I  don't  know  what  to  say." 

"Don't  say  anything." 

"You  can't  know—" 


STAR  DUST  307 

11 1  do  know." 

1  'You  see,  she  is  almost  four  now,  and  beautifully 
cared  for,  but,  now  that  her  little  mind  is  beginning  to 
unfold — I—  Oh,  to  be  able  to  afford  a  place  of  my 
own — next  year — when  she  has  outgrown  Mrs. 
Dupree's.  You  see,  I've  never  really  had  her.  I've 
such  plans  for  the  day  when  I  can  have  her  rearing 
all  to  myself.  I  want  life  to  unfold  so  naturally  to 
her.  Like  a  flower.  That's  why  I  am  so  terribly 
jealous  of  every  day  we  spend  apart.  That's  why  you 
— you  cannot  know  what  it  means  to  have  you  tell 
me  that  I've  made  good.  It  means  that  the  time  is 
nearing  for  me  to  have  her  with  me,  to — to —  Well, 
you  cannot — cannot  know!" 

She  sat  back,  feeling  foolish  because  her  eyes 
were  filling  and  trying  to  smile  back  the  tears. 

He  reached  over  to  place  his  palms  over  her  hand. 

"How  rightly  named  you  are!  'Lilly.'  One  of 
those  big,  milky-spathed,  calla  lilies.  Calla  Lilly." 

"We'll  be  going  now,"  she  said,  feeling  for  her 
jacket. 

They  rode  down  to  Eleventh  Street  in  a  cab, 
almost  silently,  and  as  she  sat  looking  out,  unsmiling, 
she  could  feel  his  gaze  burn  her  profile. 

He  left  her  at  the  stoop,  standing  bareheaded. 

"You've  saved  me  from  an  evening  of  horrors." 

"I'm  glad." 

"You're  not  angry — Calla  Lilly?" 

"Of  course  not." 

' '  How  soon  again  ? ' ' 

"No." 

"Yes,  yes!" 

"No." 

And  somehow  the  word  was  like  a  plummet  deep 
into  the  years  ahead. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ONE  hot  Saturday  afternoon,  at  least  a  twelve 
month  later,  as  Lilly  was  rushing  down  from 
the  children's  department  of  one  of  Broadway's 
gigantic  cut-rate  department  stores,  she  stopped  so 
abruptly  that  she  created  a  little  throwback  in  the 
sidewalk  jam. 

Her  miracle  was  broken.  Her  first  impulse  even 
now  was  to  dart  back,  but  the  tow  of  the  crowd  was 
strong,  and,  besides,  she  was  suddenly  eye  to  eye  with 
an  exceedingly  thin  youth  with  a  very  long  neck 
rising  far  above  a  high  collar,  a  pasty  and  slightly 
pimpled  face  evidently  slow  to  beard,  and  a  soft  hat 
pulled  down  over  meek  light-blue  eyes,  himself  even 
more  inclined  to  push  on  than  she. 

It  was  her  first  encounter  since  her  clean  cleavage 
from  a  strangely  remote  dream  phase  of  her  exist 
ence.  For  the  first  three  years  '  she  had  carried 
about  a  fear  of  some  such  meeting,  a  passer-by 
brushing  her  shoulders  or  a  sense  of  presence  at  her 
back  sending  a  shock  through  her.  Once  she  had 
hurriedly  left  a  Subway  train  because  of  a  fancied 
likeness  to  Roy  Kemble  in  a  young  fellow  across  the 
aisle.  Even  now  there  were  days  when  fancied  resem 
blances  seem  to  people  the  crowds. 

"Why,  Harry  Calvert!" 

"Hello,"  he  said  in  the  tempo  of  no  great  surprise, 
but  purpling  up  into  his  lightish  hair.  "I  know 
you.  You're  Lilly  Becker." 

"Harry,  I  cannot  believe  my  eyes!    I  haven't  seen 


STAR  DUST  309 

you  since  you  were  in  knickers.  And  to  think  we 
remembered  each  other!  Come  here  a  minute  out  of 
the  crowd.  I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

He  followed  her  with  some  reluctance  and  a  great 
sheepishness  out  of  Broadway  into  quieter  Thirty- 
fourth  Street,  twirling  his  hat,  his  nervousness 
growing. 

"You  look  fine,  Lilly. "  ^ 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  Harry?  How  is  your 
grandma?  St.  Louis?" 

She  could  have  embraced,  cried  over  him,  the  lone 
liness  of  years  seeming  to  rush  to  a  head. 

"Gramaw  and  I  live  here." 

"Harry,  not  really!" 

"Nearly  two  years,  now." 

"Where?" 

"  'Way  out  near  Tremont  Avenue." 

"And  you,  Harry,  what  do  you  do?" 

"I  was  window  dresser  for  a  gents'  furnishing 
store  up  to  a  few  weeks  ago,  but  it — it  changed  hands. 
I'm  out  of  a  job  right  now." 

"Harry,  do  you  ever  hear  from — home?" 

"No,  Miss  Lilly,  we  never  see  anyone  from  there. 
You're  the  first." 

"I'll  tell  you  what.  I'm  going  home  with  you. 
Take  me  out  with  you  to  visit  your  grandma.  I 
haven't  seen  her  in  years — it's  been  so  long  ago — 
everything." 

He  was  wringing  his  hat  now  and  shifting. 

"It's  a  long  way  out,  Lilly.  It's  hardly  built  up 
out  there  at  all." 

"I  don't  care.  I'll  buy  some  pastries  on  the  way 
and  we  will  make  a  party  of  it.  Does  she  still  keep 
boarders?" 

"Roomers." 


3io  STAR  DUST 

"Poor,  dear  Mrs.  Schum,  fancy  her  living  here!" 

They  rode  out  on  a  surface  car,  changing  twice 
and  jammed  face  to  face  on  a  rear  platform,  a  brilliant 
pink,  out  in  her  face. 

"Harry,  I  just  cannot  realize  it.  You  a  full- 
fledged  man!" 

"I'm  twenty-four." 

"What  is  that  yellow  on  your  fingers?  Not  from 
smoking?" 

"I  used  to  a  lot,  but  not  now." 

"Is  your  grandmother  just  as  wrapped  up  in  you 
as  ever,  Harry  ?  Poor  dear ! ' ' 

"Yes,  she  is.  You  sure  look  fine,  Lilly.  You're 
pretty!" 

"And  what  in  the  world  brought  you  to  New  York 
and  what  ever  became  of  Mr.  Hazzard  and — " 

"Oh,  gramaw  read  in  the  paper  once  that  he 
died  of  that  sore  on  his  face." 

"And  old  Willie  and  Mr.  Keebil  and  Snow  Horton 
— ever  see  any  of  them,  Harry?" 

"No;  you  see  it  is  nearly  two  years  since — " 

"I  have  a  little  daughter — almost  five  years  old!" 

"Gramaw  followed  up  in  the  papers  when  you 
were  married.  Flora  Kemble  and  Roy,  they're  both 
married,  too." 

"Harry,  didn't  you  ever  hear  anything  about — 
well,  about  my  marriage?" 

' '  Yes,  there  was  something  about  it.  I  forget.  You 
live  in  New  York?" 

"Yes,  and,  Harry,  don't  say  anything  when  we  get 
to  your  home.  Just  let  me  walk  in  and  surprise  her." 

"Yes." 

More  and  more  she  noticed  his  indoor  whiteness 
and  the  eyelids  which  would  twitch  nervously. 

"Do  you  keep  well,  Harry?" 


STAR  DUST  311 

"Fairly." 

There  was  quite  a  walk  from  the  car,  across  a  via 
duct,  down  a  flight  of  steps,  and  into  a  steep  new 
street  of  flimsy-looking  apartment  houses  of  the 
dawning  era  of  vertical  homes.  But  the  Harlem 
River,  neat  as  a  canal,  flowed  within  easy  view  and 
there  was  something  very  scoured  about  the  expres 
sion  of  the  just  graded  street  of  occasional  vacant 
lots,  showing  the  first  break  in  the  continuity  of  city 
brick  that  Lilly's  tired  eyes  had  encountered. 

"Why,  Harry,  I've  never  been  away  out  here 
before!  How  nice  and  clean!'* 

"Here  we  are." 

They  entered  one  of  the  tan-brick  buildings,  "El 
Dorado"  writ  in  elegant  gilt  script  across  the  tran 
som.  Then  up  three  flights  of  clean,  new,  fireproof 
stairs,  Harry  inserting  his  key  into  one  of  the  two 
doors  that  faced  the  landing. 

"Sh-h-h,  Harry!    Tell  her  it  is  just  a  friend." 

Old  odors  laden  with  memory  rushed  to  meet  her ; 
that  pungency  which,  unaccountably  enough,  reeks 
of  the  cold  boiled  potato,  and  which  old  upholsteries, 
windowless  hallways,  and  frequent  meat  stews  can 
generate. 

There  was  a  blob  of  low-pressure  gaslight  in  the 
hallway,  a  weak  and  watery  eye  burning  from  a  side 
bracket  into  the  odor  so  poignant  with  association. 
Tony  Eli  drowned  at  eighteen.  Her  father  peering 
behind  the  dresser.  "Where's  Lilly?"  "Here  I 
am!"  Herself  hugging  up  her  knees  in  their  stout 
ribbed  stockings,  her  round  gaze  on  the  red-glass 
globe  with  the  warts  blown  into  it. 

There  it  was,  that  same  glass  globe  around  the 
puny  light;  and  the  hatrack — the  one  with  the  seat 
that  opened  for  rubbers  and  school  bags. 


312  STAR  DUST 

"Gramaw,  come  out.    Here  is  some  one." 

A  long  cooking  fork  in  her  hand,  and  a  puff  of 
steam  hissing  out  after  her,  Mrs.  Schum  peered  into 
the  hallway.  She  was  strangely  smaller,  Lilly 
thought,  as  if  the  flesh  were  beginning  to  wither  off 
the  rack  of  her  bones. 

"Mrs.  Schum!    Dear  Mrs.  Schum!" 

4 'Who's  that?" 

"Come  out,  gramaw.    It's  no  one  to  be  afraid  of." 
Harry ! ' '    Her  voice  came  cracking  out  like  a  shot. 
"Harry,  are  you  in  trouble?" 

"No— no— " 

"Who  is  hounding  you?  If  you  are  here  about  my 
grandson,  madam,  they  are  all  the  time  trying  to 
get  the  best  of  my  boy.  He  hasn't  broken  parole 
since  old  Judge  Delahanty  down  in  the  Twenty- 
third  Street  Court—" 

1 '  Mrs.  Schum !  Dear  Mrs.  Schum !  Don't  you  know 
me  ?  Please !  Think,  dearie,  the  little  girl  out  in  St. 
Louis  who  used  to  plague  you  for  bread  and  butter— 

The  old  face  loosened,  the  eyes  peering  through 
spectacles  held  across  the  nose  with  a  bit  of  twine. 

"It  isn't— Lilly— Becker?" 

"Right  the  first  time,  gramaw!" 

"Bless  my  heart!  Bless  my  soul!  Let  me  sit 
down.  I'm  right  weak.  Little  Lilly — Becker!" 

They  embraced  there  in  a  hallway  hardly  wide 
enough  to  contain  them.  These  two,  who  ordinarily 
might  have  met  again,  after  such  a  span  of  years, 
in  the  mildest  of  reunions,  here  in  each  other's 
arms,  hungrily,  heartbeat  to  heartbeat. 

"Lilly,  Lilly,  come  in  here  and  let  me  look  at  you. 
Light  up  the  front  room,  Harry.  Well,  I  declare! 
Let  me  sit  down.  I'm  right  weak-kneed.  Law! 
pretty  is  no  name!  Well,  I  declare!" 


STAR  DUST  313 

In  the  little  front  room  of  chromos,  folding  bed 
with  desk  attachment,  a  bisque  knickknack  or  two, 
they  were  finally  knee  to  knee,  Lilly's  hat  tossed 
aside,  her  hands  clasping  the  old  veiny  ones. 

"Begin  at  the  beginning,  Mrs.  Schum.  Everything. 
First,  tell  me,  dear,  how  long  since  you  have  heard 
of  my  folks?" 

"Harry,  you  go  out  in  the  kitchen  and  keep  the 
things  warm  until  gramaw  comes  out  to  dish  up. 
Set  the  table  with  a  cloth  on,  and  run  over  to  the 
delicatessen  for  a  bit  of  cold  cuts.  He's  a  right 
smart  help  to  me,  Lilly.  Not  like  some  boys,  too 
proud  to  help.  And  now — now — let  me  see — why, 
it's  two  years  since  I  met  your  mother  downtown  in 
St.  Louis  before  I  had  any  idea  of  coming  here." 

"How  did  she  look?" 

' '  Splendid.  She  was  with  one  of  her  euchre  friends, 
so  I  didn't  have  the  chance  for  an  old-time  chat,  but 
she  made  me  promise  to  come  and  see  her,  and  'pon 
my  word,  just  as  young  and  pretty  as  you  please, 
with  a  fine  face  veil  and  a  purple  feather  boa  and 
shopping  out  of  the  Busy  Bee  bins  just  the  way  she 
used  to  do." 

"She  looked— happy?" 

"Indeed  she  did!  Buying  some  menfolk  stuff. 
Wool  socks,  I  think  she  said,  for  your  father,  was  it, 
who  is  subject  to  colds  in  the  head — " 

"No,  those  weren't  for  papa.  Oh,  Mrs.  Schum, 
it's  so  good  to  hear  of  her  first  hand  like  this !  What — 
what  did  she  say  about  me?" 

"Told  me  about  you  off  here  studying  opera,  and 
your  husband  was  making  his  home  with  them.  I — 
I  took  it  from  what  she  said  you  were  none  too  happy 
with  him,  but  I  had  no  idea  of  your  being  here  still ! 
Aren't  things  well  with  you,  Lilly?  I  always  said 


STAR  DUST 

you  reminded  me  of  my  Annie,  and  she  would  have 
turned  out  something  big  if  she  had  lived.  I  expect 
it  of  you,  too,  Lilly." 

"What  else?" 

"She  put  up  a  bold  front  with  me,  I  will  say  that, 
never  letting  on  that  there  had  been  trouble.  And 
then  just  before  I  left — we  came  away  mighty 
unexpectedly — Katy  Stutz — " 

"Katy  Stutz—-" 

"Yes,  came  to  sew  for  a  family  I  had  boarding 
with  me,  and  she  said  she  heard  you  had  left  him  for 
good  and  that  your  parents  took  sides  with  your  hus 
band  and  had  him  in  their  home,  occupying  your 
very  room,  and  that  your  mother  was  as  fussy  over 
him  as  she  ever  was  over  you,  babying  him  to  death. 
Lilly,  Lilly,  what  is  wrong  with  you?" 

"And  my  father,  Mrs.  Schum?" 

"Fine.  Mary  says  he's  a  bit  whiter,  but  not  a 
whit  changed.  He's  done  well  in  the  rope  business, 
hasn't  he?  Although  I  always  say  it  was  your 
mother's  practical  ways  got  him  on  his  feet,  and  from 
what  I  understand  that  young  man  you  married  has 
given  him  many  a  lift.  They've  gone  in  business 
together,  haven't  they?  They  tell  me,  Lilly,  there  is 
not  a  steadier  or  more  advancing  young  man  than 
yours.  Ah  me,  the  ways  of  young  ones  are  strange. 
I  guess  you  haven't  heard  about  Harry,  either?" 

"No." 

"He's  a  good  boy,  Harry  is,  Lilly,  but  I've  been 
through  trouble  with  him.  That's  the  reason  for  cur 
being  here.  You  see,  Lilly,  him  being  a  poor  orphan 
all  his  life,  they're  all  against  him.  The  little  fellow 
never  had  the  right  raising,  knocking  around  with  all 
those  nigger  servants,  and  me  with  never  the  time  to 
do  for  him." 


STAR  DUST  315 

1 '  Oh,  Mrs.  Schum,  how  can  you !  Why,  there  wasn't 
any  of  the  youngsters  in  the  boarding  house  had  a 
sweeter  influence  over  him  than  Harry." 

1  'No,  no.  It  was  all  my  fault.  I  was  too  pressed 
trying  to  make  ends  meet.  I  should  have  given  up 
that  big  house  years  ago  for  a  few  roomers  like  now. 
He  got  in  bad  ways,  Lilly.  Not  noisy  and  with  gangs 
like  some  rough  boys  would.  But  quiet — solitary- 
like.  I  never  knew  him  to  hang  around  with  that 
gang  of  boys  that  used  to  loaf  over  at  Pirney's  drug 
store  or  anything  like  that,  but  after  the  Kembles 
and  you  folks  left,  Harry  got  to  stealing,  Lilly. 
Little  things.  The  child  never  took  anything  more 
than  a  bit  of  lead  pipe  from  Quinn's  empty  house 
across  the  street,  and  once  a  little  silver  trinket  from 
a  milliner  I  had  up  in  the  third  floor  front — " 

"He  used  to  do  little  things  like  that  when  he  was 
a  child,  don't  you  remember,  dear?" 

"It's  his  father  in  him,  Lilly.  Maybe  you  don't 
know  it,  but  that's  what  killed  my  Annie,  that 
same  streak  which  was  the  ruination  of  a  fine,  edu 
cated  man  like  his  father.  But  Harry's  got  too 
much  of  his  mother  in  him  to  be  all  bad;  he — " 

"Of  course  he  has,  dear." 

"To  get  back  to  our  coming  East,  Lilly.  One 
night  he — Harry  brought  me  home  a  brooch,  Lilly. 
A  right  pretty  gold  one  with  a  garnet  in.  It  used  to 
hurt  him  that  I  never  had  any  finery.  He  wouldn't 
take  anything  to  buy  drink  and  bad  times  for  himself 
like  other  boys,  but  he'd  steal  something  to  bring 
home  to  his  old  grandmother.  All  that  night,  Lilly, 
down  there  in  the  basement  kitchen,  I  was  nearly 
crazy  trying  to  get  out  of  him  where  he  got  that 
brooch.  The  next  day  they  was  after  him,  for  it  and 

some — nickel-plated  facets  from  out  of  the  wash- 
21 


316  STAR  DUST 

room  where  he  was  working.  They  hushed  it  up. 
Old  Judge  Mayer,  you  remember  his  sister  used  to 
board  with  me.  But  the  next  time  there  was  a  little 
trouble — this  time  a — a  little  finger  ring — not  even 
all  gold.  I — we — we  had  to  sell  out  and  come  here — 
where  we  could  be  swallowed  up." 

"Oh,  Harry,  Harry,  how  could  he!" 

"Wasn't  his  fault.  It  wasn't  the  place  for  him  out 
there  any  more  with  everybody  against  a  poor 
orphan.  I've  cut  him  off,  Lilly,  from  his  bad  ways  out 
there.  You're  the  first  I've  seen  or  heard  of  since  we 
left,  and  I  don't  want  you  to  even  write  it  to  your 
folks  that  we're  here.  There's  the  little  matter  of 
that  ring — not  even  all  gold — and — some  lead  pipe — 
forgotten,  now — please  God,  but  they  might  want 
him  back  for  it — that's  how  down  on  him  they  are. 
He's  a  good  boy,  Harry  is,  Lilly,  with  respect  for  his 
grandmother.  He's  had  a  slip  up  or  two,  but  the  best 
of  us  have  that,  haven't  we?" 

"Yes." 

"It's  to  be  expected.  A  boy  can't  shake  off  his 
inheritance  overnight,  can  he  ?  Can  he  ? " 

"No,  I  suppose  not,  dear." 

"Don't  let  on,  Lilly.  He's  sensitive.  We'll  win 
yet,  Harry  and  me  will.  The  world  hasn't  taken 
much  stock  of  a  poor  little  basement  orphan,  but 
with  the  kind  of  mother  he  had,  his  grandmother  will 
live  yet  to  see  the  day  that  it  does  take  account  of 
him.  Harry's  right  smart  with  draping  and  decorat 
ing  around  the  house,  and  if  I  do  say  it,  when  he 
dresses  a  window  the  traffic  stops.  He's  a  great  one 
for  reading  and  following  up  the  magazines,  too. 
Smart.  I'd  stake  my  all  on  a  boy  that  has  got  it  in 
him  to  treat  his  grandmother  with  the  gentleness  he 
does.  And  children !  There  is  not  one  on  the  street 


STAR  DUST  317 

he  can  pass  for  love  of  them.  A  boy  like  that  cannot 
be  all  bad,  can  he,  Lilly?" 

Her  eyes  magnified  with  the  glaze  of  tears  so  that 
one  blink  would  have  overflowed  them,  Lilly  laid  her 
lips  to  the  veiny  old  hand,  her  voice  down  into  the 
lap  of  blue-checkered  apron. 

"We  mothers — Mrs.  Schum — God,  how  we  love 
to  suffer  to  them!" 

"We!" 

Her  face  in  the  tired  old  lap,  the  little  room  seem 
ing  to  crowd  up  with  voice,  Lilly  talked  on  then, 
until  the  little  clock  inset  into  a  china  plate  ticked 
out  an  hour,  and  in  the  kitchen,  Harry,  with  all  his 
old  capacity  for  meekness,  lay  asleep  with  his  head 
in  his  arms  and  the  little  dinner  cloying  on  the 
stove. 

"I'm  afraid  my  old  brain  don't  take  it  all  in, 
Lilly.  You  mean  your  mother — father — none  of 
them — know?" 

"It  isn't  for  you  to  understand,  dear.  The  mere 
telling  of  it  has  somehow  eased  things.  We  are  bits 
of  seaweed,  dear  Mrs.  Schum,  tossed  up  on  the 
same  shores.  You  and  your  fugitive  from  environ 
ment.  Me  and  mine.  If  your  secret  is  to  be  mine, 
mine  must  be  yours." 

"God  have  mercy  on  you,  Lilly,  wherever  it  is  your 
ways  are  leading  you." 

"He  has  had,  Mrs.  Schum." 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  know.  You  know  best, 
I  guess,  what  is  in  your  heart." 

"I  do.     It's  this.    Why  can't  you  take— us?" 

"Who?" 

"I  want  her  with  me.  She  is  getting  big  enough 
for  the  kind  of  training  I  have  all  mapped  out  for 
her.  And  now  you — it's  nothing  short  of  destiny  led 


3i8  STAR  DUST 

me  to  you.  I  could  put  her  in  day  school.  Can  take 
her  myself  in  the  mornings,  say,  and  you,  dear  Mrs. 
Schum,  are  to  call  for  her?  I  can  pay.  I  can  help 
you  and  you  can  help  me.  Later  we  may  take  a 
larger  place  with  extra  room.  Mrs.  Schum,  don't 
you  see,  weVe  been  thrown  together!" 

"Why,  Lilly— I  believe— I  do." 

It  was  after  ten  o'clock  when,  over  a  belated  little 
meal,  they  ceased  their  planning.  Eleven,  when 
Harry  finally  walked  with  her  across  the  viaduct  to 
the  street  car.  Stars  were  out.  Thick  white  ones. 
She  skipped  a  little,  ran  a  little,  and  stood  a  moment 
at  the  parapet,  looking  down  at  the  lights  which  fol 
lowed  the  narrow  course  of  the  river.  She  felt  sud 
denly  wild  for  bauble.  Her  flesh,  which  never  particu 
larly  craved  the  lay  of  fine  fabric,  felt  cheated.  -  She 
wanted  to  wind  her  body  to  its  utmost  flexuosity, 
bare  her  throat  to  the  wind,  and  fling  out  a  gesture 
the  width  of  Vegas  to  Capella. 

At  the  corner  she  took  Harry's  face  between  her 
hands,  kissing  him  soundly  on  the  lips. 

1 '  Good  night,  Harry,  and  God  bless  you  for  letting 
me  find  you." 

Long  after  that  kiss,  ever  so  lightly  bestowed,  lay 
burning  against  his  lips  and  she  had  boarded  the 
street  car,  he  stood  looking  after,  with  his  very  light- 
blue  eyes. 


Book  Three 
THE  WINE 


CHAPTER  I 

WHEN  Zoe  Penny  was  still  in  knee  frocks  she 
graduated,  first  in  her  class,  from  the  public 
grade  school.  It  was  a  period  of  great  stress  for  Lilly, 
of  happy  shopping  and  the  sweet  anxieties  of  ribbon 
and  frock,  and  there  were  always  two  high  circles 
of  color  out  on  her  cheeks,  and  from  time  to  time  she 
would  force  herself  to  sit  down,  uncurl  her  fingers 
of  their  tensity,  as  Ida  Blair  had  taught  her,  and  thus, 
starting  in  at  the  hands,  try  to  relax. 

After  two  or  three  moves  from  the  makeshift  of 
the  Tremont  Avenue  apartment,  they  were  finally 
installed  in  an  old  brownstone  walk-up  house  in 
West  Ninety-third  Street,  a  stone's  throw  removed 
from  an  avenue  of  Elevated  structure  and  petty 
shops,  but  with  a  quiet  enough,  if  gloomy,  dignity. 
One  of  those  tunnel  dwellings,  the  light  from  the 
front  room  and  kitchen  gradually  petering  out  into 
a  middle  room  of  almost  absolute  darkness. 

Lilly  and  her  daughter  occupied  what  corresponded 
to  the  parlor,  a  room  of  white  woodwork,  flimsy  white 
mantelpiece,  and  gilded  radiator;  one  of  the  vertical 
layers  and  layers  of  just  such  city  parlors.  Two 
narrow  front  windows  looked  down  into  Ninety- 
third  Street  and  there  were  closed  white  folding 
doors  with  again  a  rented  piano  against  them.  A 
pretty  screen  of  Japanese  paper  with  a  sprig  of  wis 
taria  across  it  shut  off  a  bureau  with  a  layout  of 
much  juvenile  claptrap  of  hair  ribbons,  side  combs, 
and  the  worthless  treasures  of  childhood.  Between 


322  STAR  DUST 

the  windows  a  "lady's  "  desk  with  hinged  writing  slab, 
really  Lilly's,  but  mostly  the  dangling  place  for  a  pair 
of  Zoe's  roller  skates  and  its  pigeonholes  bulging 
with  her  daughter's  somewhat  extraneous  matter. 
But  there  were  a  two-tone  brown  rug,  and  yellow 
silk  curtains  saved  the  room  from  the  iniquitous 
Nottingham  and  Axminster  school  of  interior  defama 
tion.  The  walls,  too,  were  tempered  of  their  white 
ness  by  brown  prints  of  the  "Coliseum  by  Night," 
"The  Age  of  Innocence,"  and  Watt's  "Hope," 
blindfolded,  atop  the  world. 

These  pictures  had  been  shopped  one  Saturday 
afternoon  at  the  cut-rate  department  store  and  were 
largely  Zoe's  choice,  happily  corroborated  by  Lilly. 

"Remarkable  selections  for  a  miss,"  said  the  clerk. 

"Do  you  really  think  so?"  cried  Lilly,  herself 
turning  away  from  an  inclination  toward  the  more 
chromatic  and  immediately  exhilarated  out  of  a 
state  of  fatigue. 

"Zoe,  you're  wonderful!" 

"You're  wonderful,  too,  Lilly." 

There  had  been  scarcely  any  baby  talk. 

At  three,  it  was  "Zoe,  are  you  happy  to  see 
mother  this  week-end?" 

"Ees,  ummie." 

And  then  one  day  out  of  the  pellucid  sky  of  baby 
hood,  in  answer  to  this  invariable  query,  it  was : 

"Yes,  Lilly,"  so  suddenly  that  something  seemed 
to  catch  at  her  heartbeat,  but  after  a  pang  she  let  it 
stand. 

Let  Lilly's  Zoe  dawn  upon  you  through  this  rather 
typical  conversation  between  them,  the  night  before 
the  graduation  from  grade  school: 

"Lilly,  am  I  beautiful?" 

"Why,  yes,  Zoe,  so  long  as  you  remain  fine  and 


STAR  DUST  323 

unspoiled  by  it.  That  is  the  rarest  kind  of  loveliness 
— inner  beauty." 

"I  don't  mean  that  kind.  Am  I  pretty — for  boys 
to  look  at?" 

"You  are  pretty  enough  as  little  girls  go,  if  that 
is  what  you  mean." 

"Is  it  wrong  to  have  beaus?" 

' '  That  all  depends.    Why  ? ' ' 

"Oh,  I  just  wanted  to  know." 

Silence. 

"A  boy  in  my  class,  Gerald  Prang,  says  he  is  my 
beau." 

"Silly  fellow." 

"Ethel  Watts  has  one.    They  kiss." 

"That's  horrid." 

"Is  it  horrid  for  me  and  Ethel  to  kiss?" 

"No,  Zoe,  you  know  it  isn't." 

"Would  it  be  horrid  for  me  and  Gerald — Gerald 
and  I— to  kiss?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

' '  Listen,  Zoe,  a  new  word.  The  most  beautiful  and 
the  most  horrible  thing  in  the  world  can  be  sex" 

"Sex?" 

"Yes,  dear.  We  haven't  used  the  term  in  our 
talks— yet." 

"Isn't  it  nice?" 

"That  lies  with  you." 

"Then  what  is  sex?" 

"Zoe,  the  world  of  human  beings  is  divided  into 
two  great  classes,  isn't  it?  Boys  and  girls." 

"Oh,  I  know!    It's  me  and  Gerald." 

"In  a  way,  yes,  but — " 

"If  me  and  Ethel  kiss,  it  isn't  sex,  but  if  me  and 
Gerald  kiss,  it  is." 


324  STAR  DUST 

"If  only  you  wouldn't  keep  your  mind  running 
ahead.  I  want  to  be  so  sure  you  are  going  to  under 
stand.  That's  what  our  botany  and  physiology  study 
has  been  for.  To  prepare  you  to  understand.  Now 
take  the  kingdom  of  flowers,  a  rose,  for  instance — " 

"Begin  with  us,  Lilly.  I  don't  want  to  hear  any 
botany." 

"But,  Zoe— " 

"Storks  cannot  bring  babies,  can  they?" 

"No.  No.  Who  put  such  silly  nonsense  into  your 
head?  Don't  let  that  stupid  fable  hide  from  you  the 
beautiful  truth  of  birth.  That  is  an ,  absurd  story, 
Zoe,  invented  by  those  to  whom  the  most  sublime 
fact  in  the  world  seems  nasty.  Babies  are  born,  dear 
— out  of  lo — out  of  the  union  of  the  sexes." 

"Lilly,  you  are  all  trembling." 

She  took  her  daughter's  face  between  her  hands. 
her  eyes  probing  and  yearning  down  into  the  bril 
liantly  blue  ones. 

"It  is  because  I  want  to  keep  life  clean  and  beau 
tiful  for  you.  Nothing  that  is  natural  is  ugly,  Zoe. 
It's  only  when  we  make  something  dark  and  shame 
ful  of  nature's  methods  that  -we  are  apt  to  misunder 
stand  and  to  err." 

"Did  you  err,  Lilly?" 

"How?" 

"With  him?" 

"Who?" 

"Penny." 

"Zoe!  Zoe!  why  will  you  refer  to  him  that  way? 
Yes,  I  erred  out  of  ignorance,  the  kind  I  want  to  save 
you  from.  In  my  case  your  father  had  to  pay  for 
the  ignorance  of  a  girl  who  married  him  without 
knowing  what  marriage  meant.  Ignorance!" 

"How  funny  to  hear  that — word." 


STAR  DUST  325 

"What  word?" 

"Father." 

"Zoe!  Zoe!  Have  I  made  it  clear  to  you  about 
him  ?  How  good — how  kind — how  wronged  by  me  ? " 

"You  are  always  so  afraid  I  won't  understand  that. 
Why  shouldn't  I?" 

' '  Because  it  is  hard,  dear,  for  you  to  grasp  it  all — 
especially  its  effect  up®n  you.  Some  day  you  will 
understand  how  gradually  I  have  tried  to  prepare 
your  mind  ta  judge  me.  Even  this  little  graduation 
to-morrowfe  if  a  milestone  and  makes  me  want  to 
talk  to  you  just  a  wee  bit  plainer.  Zoe,  I — Zoe,  does 


.oes— " 

"What?" 

"Does  it  ever  make  you  unhappy  among  the 
other  children  to  be  questioned  about  your — father? " 

"No." 

* '  Do  you  ever  feel  that  you  would  like  to  see  him  ? " 

"No." 

"Why?" 

' '  Because  he  is  dull.    He  would  spoil  things  for  us. " 

"But  doesn't  it  ever  seem  terrible  to  you,  Zoe,  that 
I  haven't  given  you  the  opportunity  to  judge  him 
for  yourself?  If  the  day  ever  comes — to-day,  to 
morrow,  next  year — that  you  want  your  father,  you 
understand,  dear,  don't  you,  that  I  will  be  the 
first  to—" 

"I  tell  you  No!  No!  Why  do  you  always  keep 
telling  me  that?  No!  No!  It's  better  his  not  know 
ing  there  is  a  me!  He  makes  me  feel  all  suffocated 
up  the  way  he  did  you.  I  couldn't  stand  it.  I  want 
to  be  what  I  want  to  be!" 

"Oh,  want  it  badly  enough  then,  Zoe;  want  it 
badly  enough!" 

"The  greatest'singer  in  the  world!    That's  what  I 


326  STAR  DUST 

want  to  be,  and  stand  on  a  stage  with  all  the  music 
there  is  around  me  as  if  I  was  in  the  middle  of  an 
ocean  of  it.  Lilly,  will  you  take  me  to  another 
matin6e  to  see  Bernhardt?  She  makes  me  feel 
what  I  want  to  be.  Just — just  her  being  what  she — is 
makes  me — want  to  be  what  I — am." 

'  *  You  funny  muddled  youngster !  Why,  you  didn't 
understand  either  what  she  said  or  what  the  play 
was  about. " 

''I  didn't  need  to.  It  was  her  voice^  Something 
she  says  with  her  voice  that  I  f^L%nside  of 
me,  only  I  can't  say  it.  I  wanted  to  cry.  Isn't 
it  queer,  Lilly,  to  feel  so  happy  you  want  to  cry? 
Oh,  I've  learned  a  new  one — only  my  voice  won't 
say  it  the  way  I  feel  it.  It's  in  our  school  Words 
worth.  Something  inside  of  me  cries  all  the  time 
I'm  saying  it: 

"Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting; 
The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  Star, 

Hath  elsewhere  had  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar; 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  Who  is  our  home. 

"Oh,  Lilly— Lilly— I  lovfe  that !— trailing  clouds  of 
glory—" 

"You  recited  it  beautifully,  darling.  See,  you've 
made  me  cry." 

"And  I — I  love  you,  Lilly.  Hold  me  tight.  I  love 
you." 

"My  baby." 

' '  Lilly,  will  you  be — angry  if  I  ask  you  something  ?" 

"What?" 

"Why — do  you  cry  in  the  night  sometimes?" 


STAR  DUST  327 

"Why,  Zoe!     Do  I?" 

"You  know  you  do.  I  can  feel  you  crying,  and 
sometimes  when  I  touch  your  face — " 

"Why,  child — that's  just  my  way.  At  night — 
things  can  be  so  real — so  terribly  real.  It  is  some 
thing  you  cannot  understand  yet." 

"Do  I  make  you  sad?" 

"No!    No!    No!  My  light,  my  life." 

"Is  it— Bruce?" 

"Why,  child — you  talk  nonsense!  Don't  speak  of 
him  as  Bruce." 

"I  hate  calling  him  Mr.  Visigoth.  It  sounds — 
meek.  I  won't  be  meek!  Are  you  sure,  Lilly,  it  isn't 
him— he?" 

"Why,  child,  in  Heaven's  name  should  it  be?" 

"He  looks  at  you  so,  Lilly.  Maybe  he  makes  you 
cry  the  way  Bernhardt  makes  me  cry.  By  what  he 
doesn't  say.  Saturday  afternoons  when  I  call  for 
you — he  looks  at  you  so  when  you're  not  looking." 

"Why  shouldn't  he?  We've  worked  together  for 
all  these  years." 

"You  and  he,  when  you  stand  up  together  you  look 
so — so — right." 

"Zoe,  you  are  talking  nonsense." 

"But  you're  all  red,  aren't  you?" 

"No." 

"Was  it  sex  to  say  that?" 

"No." 

"Are  you  glad  he  is  coming  to-night?" 

"Mr.  Visigoth  and  I  have  business  together,  Zoe. 
We  cannot  sit  around  in  public  places  and  discuss 
matters.  I'm  reading  Mrs.  Blair's  play  to  him.  Go 
to  bed  now,  dear." 

"Mayn't  I  stay  up?" 

"No." 


328  STAR  DUST 

Her  child  looked  up  at  her,  chin  cupped  in  her  small 
hand  and  crystals  of  light  out  in  her  eyes. 

"Please,  Lilly — why  do  you  cry?" 

"Why,  darling,  I  don't  cry  because  of  anything 
you  are  quite  ready  to  understand.  You  know  that, 
don't  you,  dear  ?  There  is  nothing  mother  won't  talk 
over  with  you  as  soon  as  you  are  ready  to  take  it  all 
in.  That  is  part  of  her  scheme  for  keeping  life  beau 
tiful  and  free  of  rude  shocks  for  you." 

"But  I  do  understand— Lilly." 

Long  after  her  child  slept  that  night  Lilly  sat  be 
side  her.  She  loved  the  willful  way  the  curls  flung 
across  the  pillow.  She  leaned  to  the  full  deep- 
chested  breathing;  leaned  to  kiss  the  lips  which, 
slightly  parted,  were  perfect  with  the  pollen  of 
vitality.  / 


CHAPTER  II 

SHE  drew  the  screen  finally  about  the  little  daven 
port,  fussing  at  the  room,  straightening  it  into 
a  sort  of  formality  with  a  woman's  intuition  for  this 
chair  one-half  inch  closer  to  the  hearth  and  that  pic 
ture  ever  so  slightly  straighter.  The  sheer  frock  she 
hung  up  in  a  closet,  covering  it  with  a  shroud  of 
tissue  paper,  wadding  her  daughter's  none-too-care- 
fully  flung  stockings  into  her  shoes  and  tiptoeing  to 
place  them  beside  the  davenport.  They  were  strong, 
ribbed  stockings,  still  warm  and  full  of  curves.  She 
stroked  over  each.  Once  she  paused  at  the  mantel 
piece  mirror,  drawing  back  her  lip  from  the  even 
whiteness  of  her  teeth,  perusing  her  points  rather 
absent-mindedly. 

Time  had  handled  Lilly  with  a  caress.  At  past 
thirty  she  was  herself  at  twenty,  with  even  more 
youth,  because  at  twenty  she  had  looked  herself 
almost  ten  years  hence.  She  had  rounded  out  a  bit, 
but  not  fatly.  If  stouter  at  all,  it  was  only  in  the 
slightly  deeper  look  to  the  cream-colored  skin.  There 
were  two  lines  across  her  forehead,  but  they  had 
been  there  at  eighteen  and  were  quite  obviously 
the  result  of  tilting  her  eyebrows  so  that  the  flesh 
folded ;  and  besides,  they  relieved  her  clearness,  these 
horizontal  traceries,  of  utter  limpidity. 

She  had  drifted,  not  all  unconsciously,  into  a 
certain  picturesque  uniformity  of  dress  and  could 
smile  now  over  the  large,  cart-wheel  hats,  coarse 
embroideries,  and  short -vamp  shoes;  neither  was  she 


330  STAR  DUST 

often  above  mentally  contrasting  herself  in  her 
annual  seventy-five  dollar  suit  of  dark-blue  serge, 
natty  sailor  hat,  and  impeccable  blouse,  with  a 
certain  coffee-colored  linen  with  its  slashings  of 
coffee-dipped  embroidery,  and  the  blouse  that  twirled 
with  yards  and  yards  of  cotton  Valenciennes. 

There  was  still  something  of  the  look  of  the  nun 
to  Lilly,  but  a  bit  too  pinkly,  as  if  she  had  dressed 
the  part  for  Act  One,  but  wore  the  ballet  skirts  for 
Act  Two  underneath. 

Her  reaction  asserted  itself  in  her  child.  At 
thirteen  Zoe  wore  straight  frocks  of  navy-blue  al 
paca  with  wide  patent-leather  belts  and  deep 
Eton  collars.  They  were  mistaken  sometimes,  and, 
strangely  enough,  to  Lilly's  invariable  chagrin,  for 
sisters,  and  Lilly,  in  her  refutation,  could  be  smitingly 
swift. 

At  nine  o'clock,  to  the  staccato  of  three  rings,  she 
admitted  Bruce  Visigoth,  leading  him  down  the  tube 
of  hallway.  It  annoyed  her  unspeakably  that  Harry 
Calvert,  collarless,  poked  out  his  head  from  a  door 
way  as  they  passed,  and  she  was  suddenly  conscious 
of  the  smell  of  stew.  She  had  meant  to  burn  an 
incense  stick. 

But  she  walked  with  that  free,  Hellenic  stride  of 
hers,  without  apology  and  ahead  of  him. 

"This  is  our  room.  Zoe  is  asleep  there  behind 
that  screen.  Won't  you  sit  down?" 

He  placed  his  hat  and  a  light  bamboo  stick  across 
the  center  table,  obviously  oppressed  with  a  sense  of 
close  quarters. 

"Tell  you  what!  Suppose  we  taxi  over  to  Clare- 
mont.  It's  mild  enough  to  sit  out  on  the  terrace." 

She  met  him  with  her  levelest  gaze. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  be  comfortable  here?" 


STAR  DUST  331 

"Of  course  I  am.  There  you  go,  getting  sensitive 
right  off.  Only  it  is  a  warmish  evening,  and  why 
keep  the  sun-child  awake?" 

"Zoe  can  sleep,"  she  said,  with  the  barely  per 
ceptible  arch  to  her  brows,  "even  through  the  fire  of 
your  presence." 

"Good!"  he  said,  seating  himself  in  great  good 
nature  and  trying  not  to  be  quizzical.  "So  this  is 
where  you  live." 

He  was  frankly  curious,  his  gaze  humorous,  but 
traveling  over  details,  his  head  upflung  and  the 
scenting  movement  to  his  nostrils.  He  had  not 
changed  in  weight,  but  in  compactness  and  as  if  the 
house  of  his  being  had  settled  with  a  fine  kind  of 
firmness.  He  was  a  bit  squarer  of  jaw  and  shoulder 
and  ever  so  prematurely,  and  to  the  enormous  fancy 
of  women,  inclined  to  a  hoar  frost  of  gray  at  the 
temples. 

She  seated  herself  across  the  little  square  of  table. 

"You  don't  seem  to  care  for  us  here." 

"Certainly  I  do,  only — only — " 

"Only  what?" 

"Only — well,  hanged  if  I  make  you  out,  lady. 
This  place — it  just  isn't  you — that's  all." 

"Nonsense!  I  don't  count.  I'm  just  a  sort  of  a 
means  to  an  end,  anyway." 

"What  end?" 

"The  wine!" 

"The  what?" 

"Oh,  nothing,"  she  said,  and  laughed. 

"Laugh  again." 

"Why?" 

"I  like  it." 

She  looked  her  most  serio-comic  disapproval  and 
held  up  a  forefinger  with  a  warning  little  waggle  to  it. 


332  STAR  DUST 

"Please,"  she  said,  with  an  inlay  of  something 
deeper  in  her  voice,  "don't  begin  by  spoiling  things." 

"Rather  not,"  he  said.  "I'm  going  to  live  up  to 
your  letter  of  the  law." 

Except  for  the  frequent  conferences  now  in  the 
new  Forty-second  Street  offices  that  commanded  a 
view  of  two  rivers  and  a  vast  battledoor  and 
shuttlecock  of  the  city,  it  was  the  first  time  in  all 
those  years  that  stretched  from  the  night  at  the 
Waldorf  that  they  had  sat  thus  t£te-a-t£te.  The 
day  of  the  move  she  had  ridden  up  from  the  old 
Union  Square  offices  with  him,  a  stack  of  files  in  her 
lap.  Once,  too,  on  a  Saturday,  the  day  of  Zoe's  in 
variable  luncheon  downtown  and  subsequent  opera 
matinSe,  he  had  strolled  by  what  seemed  mischievous 
chance  into  the  tea  room  where  they  were  dining, 
but  the  occasion  had  hardly  been  a  success.  There 
had  been  a  great  deal  of  badinage  between  him  and 
Zoe,  but  Lilly  had  finished  her  meal  almost  in  silence. 
The  day  following,  a  toy  piano  of  complete  range  and 
really  excellent  workmanship  had  arrived.  She  re 
turned  it  without  shoeing  it  to  Zoe.  These  incidents 
lay  between  them  now. 

"So  this  is  where  you  live,"  he  repeated,  as  if  his 
long  curiosity  could  not  find  satiety  in  fact. 

"That  I  have  an  abode  seems  to  amaze  you." 

"It  does.  You're  such  a  detached  sort.  You  rise 
so  above  the  mundane  things  that  clutter  up  life, 
that  it  is  pretty  much  of  a  shock  to  realize  that  you 
use  tooth  powder  and  carry  a  latchkey.  It's  hard  to 
reconcile  Chopin  and  George  Sand  probably  to  those 
famous  raw-meat  sandwiches  they  loved  to  eat  at 
midnight.  Well,  that's  about  the  way  I  feel  about 
you — hemmed  in  by — dull  reality  such  as  this." 

"I  like  raw-meat  sandwiches,"  she  said. 


STAR  DUST  333 

"Me  too." 

They  laughed. 

She  took  up  a  sheaf  of  manuscript. 

"If  it  doesn't  bore  you  too  much,  I'm  going  to  read 
it  straight  through." 

."Oh,  I  forgot;  the  play,  of  course." 

She  looked  up  at  him  as  if  over  spectacles. 

"What  else?" 

"You  say  it  has  been  the  rounds?" 

"Yes.  Peddled  in  every  office  in  New  York. 
Kline  and  Alshuler  kept  it  two  years.  Forensi  paid 
her  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  advance  on  it  and 
then  let  his  option  lapse.  For  another  year  there 
was  some  talk  of  Comstock  and  Comstock  doing  it, 
and  then  finally  Hy  Wolff  got  hold  of  it  and  the  very 
month  he  died  paid  her  a  second  two  hundred  and 
fifty  to  renew  his  option  on  it.  I've  always  felt  that 
if  Ida  had  kept  after  Hy  Wolff  he  would  have  pro 
duced  it.  He  had  faith  in  it,  but  somehow  just 
didn't  seem  to  get  to  it.  You  see,  Ida  hasn't  any 
gumption — not  the  kind  of  aggressiveness  the  game 
demands.  That  r,  why  in  fifteln  years  you  scarcely 
know  she  is  in  your  office.  That  is  why  I  plunged 
in  and  tried  to  rewrite  'The  Web'  with  her.  It's 
a  big  story,  sweated  out  of  her  own  agony.  She 
may  never  write  another.  Probably  won't.  My 
little  part  in  it  has  merely  been  to  help  her  co-ordi 
nate — round  up  the  jumble  of  her  ideas,  so  to  speak. 
There  is  a  big  play  somewhere  in  this  story.  I  know 
you  didn't  like  it  as  a  sketch — I  didn't,  either.  A 
short  play  cannot  contain  this  drama.  But  out  of  a 
clear  sky  it  occurred  to  me  that  you  might  see  it  as 
a  three-act  play.  Oh,  I  know  it  isn't  the  kind  of 
thing  you've  your  mind's  eye  on,  but  why  not  take 
that  step  over  into  the  legitimate  via  a  big  popular 


334  STAR  DUST 

success?  It  may  pave  the  way  to  bigger,  finer  things. 
Who  knows — Ida  Blair — 'The  Web' — may  mean 
the  beginning  of  your  dream  come  true." 

His  mouth  had  straightened  and  thinned. 

"You're  right  there.  Ultimately  I'll  get  into  the 
other.  If  my  brother  knew  as  much  about  the 
booking  end  as  he  does  the  realty,  I'd  have  gone 
over  long  ago.  That  is  the  most  the  success  of  the 
Amusement  Enterprise  can  mean  to  me — to  afford 
some  day  the  legitimate  as  a  plaything.  It  costs 
money  to  educate  the  public  to  better  things.  It's 
been  profitable  playing  down  to  its  taste — some  day 
it  is  going  to  enable  me  to  afford  to  be  sufficiently 
altruistic  to  foot  the  bills  for  serving  up  the  best. 
It  costs  to  educate." 

"Fine!  And  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  until 
you  are  ready  for  that  inspiring  fray.  Meanwhile, 
why  not  help  foot  those  bills  with  a  little  side  flier  in 
'The  Web'?" 

"You  are  a  little  opportunist,  aren't  you?" 

"I  know  'The  Web'  isn't  art.  But  it  is  a  cross 
section  of  reality  witA  the  veins  exposed  and  the  sap 
of  life  running  through  them.  Mrs.  Blair,  poor 
dear,  can't  write.  God  knows  I  can't.  That  is  why 
the  play  has  been  through  years  of  lying  around  in 
every  office  in  New  York.  But  the  idea  is  there. 
You  see,  it  is  everything  she  has  lived  through.  You 
know  her  story?" 

"Yes." 

"There  is  a  scene  when  he  comes  screaming  out 
of  the  room  after  having  been  through  the  third 
degree,  half  blind  from  the  terrible  lights  and  the 
terrible  circle  of  terrible  eyes,  that  isn't  writing  at 
all.  It's  life — a  raw,  palpitating  picture  of  a  social 
abuse  that  can  touch  the  public  as  a  reform  measure 


STAR  DUST  335 

can  never  hope  to.  Then  the  character  of  the  boy — • 
a  delinquent.  We've  one  right  here  in  this  apart 
ment.  One  of  those  sweet,  shy,  half -frightened  boys 
as  gentle  as  a  girl.  The  kind  that  tells  the  neighbor 
hood  children  Peter  Pan  and  reads  his  grandmother 
to  sleep.  I  would  trust  him  anywhere  with  Zoe,  and 
yet  there's  the  streak!  The  criminal,  congenital 
streak  through  him  that  is  as  pathological  as  measles. 
Only  we  handle  it  under  the  heading  of  criminology. 
It's  like  taking  an  earache  to  the  chiropodist.  The 
boy  is  a  thief.  It's  through  him  like  a  rotten  spot, 
but  instead  of  curing  him  the  law  wants  to  punish 
him.  It's  like  spanking  a  child  for  having  the 
measles.  But  to  get  back — Mrs.  Blair  has  him  in  this 
play — just  as  if  she  had  lifted  him  out  of  this  apart 
ment.  She  wrote  him  from  the  life,  too.  A  young 
fellow  who  used  to  be  on  her  husband's  beat.  It 
may  not  be  fine  writing,  but  'The  Web '  has  the  throb 
of  reality  through  it,  and  it  is  my  opinion  that  one 
pulsebeat  of  life  is  worth  all  your  chastity  of  form." 

"Right." 

"We're  one  on  that?  Good!  Well,  here  is  your 
opportunity  to  solder  the  first  link  into  the  legitimate. 
Keep  it  in  mind  while  I  am  reading  Ida  Blair's  play 
and  remember  I  am  not  talking  Ida  Blair  or  Lilly 
Penny  to  you.  I'm  talking  this  play  just  as  I  would 
talk  an  act  to  you.  Because  I  believe  in  it." 

He  seemed  to  look  at  her  through  her  words,  a 
smile  out  in  his  eyes. 

"You're  not  listening." 

"I  am,"  he  said,  "but  your  hair  looks  like  it  is 
painted  on,  the  way  it  comes  down  to  that  smooth 
little  peak  in  front.  Jove!  it's  pretty." 

She  looked  off,  wanting  not  to  color. 

"Come,"  he  said,  "I  apologize.     Read.     I'm  as 


336  STAR  DUST 

predisposed  as  I  can  be  toward  anything  conceived 
by  that  little  dormouse  of  a  person  in  the  office.'* 

"That's  the  trouble.  You  men  are  too  often 
satisfied  with  a  surface  inventory.  The  vault  of 
heart  sometimes  yields  up  rare  treasures." 

"How  like  you  to  say  that.'* 

"Ready?" 

"Go!" 

And  so,  with  her  head  bent  so  that  the  light 
burnished  its  smoothness,  she  read  him  '  *  The  Web ' ' 
through  two  uninterrupted  hours,  her  voice  throb 
bing  into  the  quiet.  In  the  third  act,  when  a  half- 
crazed  victim  of  the  third  degree  is  led  out  in  shud 
dering  and  horrible  invocation,  she  sprang  to  her 
feet  for  an  instant,  her  gesture  decrying  its  fullest  arc. 

She  was  like  Iphigenia  praying  for  death,  he 
thought. 

Later,  when  the  shades  of  the  prison  house  oegin 
to  dawn  upon  the  stunned  consciousness  of  the 
woman,  there  were  tears  in  her  voice  and  on  her 
lashes,  and  one  fell  to  the  back  of  her  hand,  which 
she  wiped  off  against  her  skirt,  like  a  child. 

At  eleven  o'clock  she  finished,  regarding  him  bril 
liantly  through  her  flush. 

He  had  wanted  to  smoke,  but  thrust  the  case  back 
into  his  pocket,  sitting  tilted,  his  hands  locked  at 
the  back  of  his  head  and  gazing  at  the  line  of  the 
picture  molding.  Her  lips  parted  as  the  paused  held. 

"Well?" 

He  uncrossed  his  knees,  straightening. 

"Well?" 

"Strong." 

"Then  it  did  grip  you?" 

"Yes,  but  I  can  see  why  it  gathered  dust  as  it 
went  the  rounds.  From  the  average  commercial 


STAR  DUST  337 

manager's  point  of  view  there  is  a  question  about 
that  seamy  kind  of  thing  getting  over  with  the  play 
goer.  He  wants  to  be  entertained,  not  harrowed. 
That's  pretty  raw  stuff.  Except  for  the  little 
woman  and  the  poor  delinquent  youngster,  it  is  an 
out-and-out — what  shall  I  say? — an  out-and-out 
crook  play,  to  coin  a  phrase." 

"Exactly.  It  is  a  section  of  life  about  which  your 
average  playgoer  knows  little  or  nothing  and  yet 
one  for  which  he  nourishes  a  tremendous  curiosity." 

* '  It's  crude— " 

"I  know,  but  the  idea  is  bigger  than  the  writing 
is  crude.  If  I  had  the  money  I  would  take  a  chance 
on  producing  it  to-morrow.  It  has  social  and  socio 
logical  value,  and  at  the  same  time  is  corking-good 
entertainment.  I  read  the  police-inspector  scene  to 
my  little  girl  just  to  see  what  she  would  get  out  of  it. 
'Why,'  she  cried,  'a  man  would  confess  to  anything 
with  that  white  light  on  him  and  those  big  police 
men's  eyes  on  him.  That's  not  fair!  That  shouldn't 
be  allowed.  Isn't  there  a  way  to  stop  it  ? '  That  from 
a  thirteen -year-old !  It's  one  of  those  man-made 
abuses  that  if  we  women  ever  get  the  vote  we'll  go 
after!  Don't  answer  me  on  this  play  now,  Mr.  Visi 
goth.  Take  it  to  your  hotel.  Read  it  over  again. 
Talk  it  over  with  your  brother  when  he  comes  next 
week.  How's  that?  No  snap  judgment." 

Good.  The  play  is  on  the  docket  for  the  evening. 
Now  let  us  get  the  taste  of  the  underworld  out  of 
our  mouths.  How  would  the  Claremont  appeal 
now?" 

"  I'd  rather  not." y 

"Well,  I  suppose  that  amounts  to  my  cong$?" 

She  smiled  with  her  brows  arched. 

"It  is  after  eleven." 


338  STAR  DUST 

He  was  incessantly  feeling  for  his  cigarette  case 
and  then  with  a  certain  unease  refraining. 

"You  may,"  she  said,  "one,  before  you  go." 

He  held  the  case  to  her.  She  took  one  gingerly, 
accepting  the  light  more  gingerly. 

"I  don't  like  them,"  she  said,  exhaling  with  the 
violence  of  the  unaccustomed. 

"Then  whyfore?" 

"Because  it  is  a  stupid  convention  which  says 
that  a  man  may  and  a  woman  may  not.  Why 
should  it  be  a  matter  of  course  for  you  and,  in  most 
cases,  a  matter  of  comment  and  even  vulgarity 
forme?" 

"Usage." 

"Usage  isn't  a  reason.  It's  Time's  trick  for  apply 
ing  the  brake  to  progress." 

He  lit  up  gratefully,  waving  out  the  match  and 
hesitating  for  a  spot  to  dispose  of  it.  She  reached 
across  the  table,  palm  up.  "Give  me." 

He  caught  her  hand. 

"Lilly!" 

She  jerked  back  with  a  little  clicky  catch  of  breath. 

"Don't." 

"Lilly,  you're  maddening!  Lilly,  can't  you  see 
what  I  haven't  the  words  to  tell  you?  For  years 
— since  that  night  at  the  Waldorf — I — I  have  been 
living  for  this  moment.  I  realized  it  to-night  as 
you  read  that  play.  Lilly,  is  what  is  between  us 
insurmountable  ? " 

She  jerked  back  her  head,  her  irises  at  their  trick 
of  growing. 

"You  don't  know  what  you  are  saying!" 

"I  do  know  what  I  am  saying.  I  know  that  you 
are  the  most  delectable  woman  in  the  world — and 
for  me." 


STAR  DUST  339 

She  held  out  his  hat  and  cane. 

"My  little  girl  is  asleep.    Hadn't  you  better  go?*' 

"That's  not  fair,"  he  said,  taking  the  hat  and  cane, 
but  flushing  up  furiously. 

"I  know  it  isn't.  But  what  is  there  I  can  say  to 
you?" 

"You  can  talk  it  out.    Man  to  man." 

"Sit  down,"  she  said,  clasping  her  hands  and 
regarding  him  through  swimming  and  revealing  eyes. 

"Now — what  is  there  to  say — Bruce — between 
you  and  me?" 

"Where  is  he?" 

"You  know." 

"Are  matters  unchanged?" 

She  nodded. 

"I  love  you,  Lilly." 

"And  I  have  a  husband  and  a  thirteen-year-old 
child,  making  of  the  triangle  a  rectangle." 

"You  have  held  me  off  on  that  dagger  point  now 
for  ten  years.  Good  God!  women  don't  martyrize 
themselves  to  a  past  these  days.  What  are  you 
doing  with  your  life?  Sacrificing  it  on  the  altar  of 
the  old  burned-out  husk  of  a  marriage?  Canonizing 
a  mistake!" 

"It  is  the  one  thing  I  am  able  to  do  for  him  in 
some  little  reparation!" 

"Mock  heroics." 

"No,  it  is  more  than  mock  heroic  to  save  him  that 
precious  shred  of  his  respectability.  That  is  about 
all  I  have  left  him  to  cherish.  There  are  some  human 
beings  you  simply  cannot  conceive  of  in  certain  situ 
ations.  Albert  Penny  and  divorce  are  irreconcilable. 
Teir  his  heart  out  if  you  will,  but  hands  off  his  re 
spectability.  It  may  sound  absurd  in  the  face  of  the 
enormity  of  what  I  have  done  to  him,  but  it  is  a  great 


340  STAR  DUST 

solace  to  me  to  be  able  to  sacrifice  that  much  to  him 
and  to  drag  him  through  my  life  like  a  ball  and  chain. 
Somehow  it  seems  that  I  ought  to  suffer  that." 

' '  Stuff  and  nonsense !  You  made  your  mistake  and 
you  had  the  courage  to  tear  away  from  it  by  the 
roots.  Unless  those  roots  have  a  drag?" 

"No.  No  drag!  And  yet  I  sometimes  think  my 
revolt  has  been  a  half  madness.  You  cannot  know 
the  sheer  folly,  the  crazy  kind  of  tenacity  that  has 
driven  me  on  through  all  these  years !  And  for  what  ? 
This  mediocrity?  Or  is  it  that  I  am  an  instrument 
clearing  the  way  for  her?  Zoe!  Is  there  a  divinity 
shapes  our  end,  rough  hew  them  how  we  will  ?  Listen 
to  something  incredible.  Do  you  know  that  Zoe's 
father  doesn't  know  that  he  is  a  father?'* 

"Good  God!" 

"Yes,  jealous  truth  going  fiction  one  better." 

1 '  You  mean  to  say  you  have  fought  this  out  alone  ?" 

* '  He  doesn't  know.  Neither  do  my  parents.  They 
would  suck  her  down.  Dwarf  her  with  their  terrible 
kind  of  love.  She  belongs  to  herself.  She's  a  beau 
tiful  thing  God  has  loaned  me  to  rear  into  a  rose, 
but  the  world  is  her  garden  in  which  to  bloom  and 
expand." 

"In  all  these  years  they  don't  know  your  where 
abouts?" 

"Oh  yes!  I  write  home  every  Christmas.  Just  a 
line  that  I  am  well  and  happy.  Occasionally  I  pick 
up  notes  of  them  in  the  St.  Louis  newspapers.  I 
keep  them  pretty  well  under  glass.  It's  all  so  dream 
like — I've  always  been  obsessed  with  that  conscious 
ness.  How  faint  can  be  the  line  between  the  dream 
and  reality." 

He  drew  her  toward  him  by  the  hands,  their  faces 
lit,  quivering,  close. 


STAR  DUST  341 

"  Lilly,  Lilly,  let  us  not  stop  just  short  of 
happiness." 

"All  my  life  I  have  done  that." 

' '  I  cannot  put  you  out  of  my  heart  now  that  I  have 
put  you  in." 

4 'No.  No.  No."  But  his  embrace  had  already 
shaped  itself,  and,  springing  back  from  it  and  her 
own  singing  of  the  flesh,  she  crowded  up  against  the 
wistaria-painted  screen,  shielding  it. 

"How  dared  you — here — in  this — room!  With 
her!" 

"Lilly!" 

"Go,  please!   Go,  please!" 

"You  mean  that?" 

"You  know  I  do." 

He  bent  low  in  the  attitude  of  kissing  her  hand, 
but  without  touching  it. 

"Forget  everything  I've  said,  Lilly,  and  forgive. 
We'll  go  back  to  the  old.  Good  night,  Lilly!  Mrs. 
Penny." 

He  must  have  departed  on  the  balls  of  his  feet, 
because  presently  through  the  roaring  of  the  silence 
she  heard  the  door  slam  without  having  been  con 
scious  of  his  passage  down  the  hallway;  and  then, 
after  a  second,  Harry  Calvert  tiptoeing  to  her  open 
door  to  look  in  with  his  light-blue  eyes. 

She  sprang  forward,  throwing  herself  against  the 
door  as  she  locked  it. 

"Don't,"  she  cried  through  it — "don't  you  ever 
dare  do  that  again,  Harry!  Walk  on  your  heels. 
You  frighten  me  when  you  sneak  like  that — you — 
you — frighten — me.  * ' 

Then  she  undressed,  crying,  tears  rolling  down  to 
her  high  white  chest  and  finally  on  to  the  crispiness 
of  her  plain  nightgown.  Crept  to  bed  finally,  into 


342  STAR  DUST 

a  darkness  as  sleek  as  a  black  cat's  flank,  silently,  to 
save  the  sag  of  mattress,  her  body  curving  to  the 
curve  of  her  child's. 

Once  from  the  inky  pool  of  that  long  night  Zoe's 
hand  crept  up,  finding  out  her  mother's  cheek. 

"Lilly,"  floating  up  for  a  drowsy  second  to  the 
surface  of  consciousness — '  *  Lilly — you're  crying.  Are 
— you  sad — again?" 

"Yes,  Zoe— terribly— terribly— " 


CHAPTER  III 

HTHE  year  that  Zoe  entered  High  School,  1914, 
A  out  of  an  international  sky  of  fairly  pellucid 
blue,  the  thunderclap  of  world  war  burst  in  fury. 

It  was  strange,  though,  even  after  the  subsequent 
plunge  of  her  country  to  the  Allied  flank,  and  the 
menacing  and  shifting  tides  of  affairs  creeping  closer 
and  closer  to  the  edge  of  everyday  life,  how  little 
the  complexion  of  Lilly's  routine  was  changed. 

True,  her  national  consciousness  flared  suddenly 
from  lethargy  to  blaze.  The  evening  after  the  sinking 
of  the  Lusitania,  she  attended  a  mass  meeting  in 
Astor  Place  with  Zoe  and  Mrs.  Blair,  beating  out  an 
umbrella-and-floor  tom-tom  for  redress,  love  of 
country  suddenly  a  lump  in  her  throat. 

The  day  the  Rainbow  Division  swept  up  Fifth 
Avenue  in  farewell,  she  could  see  the  rank  and  file 
from  the  roof  of  the  Forty-second  Street  office  build 
ing,  as  if  the  avenue  were  running  a  clayey  stream, 
and  she  was  torn  between  the  ache  and  the  thanks 
giving  of  having  no  one  to  give. 

But,  for  the  most  part,  war  kept  its  talons  off  Lilly. 
Twice,  and  as  if  his  exemption  from  the  draft  lay 
heavily,  Harry  Calvert  had  tried  to  enlist,  his  grand 
mother,  with  a  zeal  that  was  hardly  accountable, 
exerting  every  effort  toward  that  end. 

It  was  almost  as  if  war  had  revived  her  somewhat 
fainting  faith  in  Harry's  ultimate  justification. 

But  he  was  underweight  and  still  in  a  weakened 
condition  from  an  operation  for  an  adenoidal  com- 


344  STAR  DUST 

plaint.  This  last  he  had  undergone  before  the  war 
and  at  Lilly's  urgent  instance.  She  had  read,  in  the 
mass  of  books  on  child  hygiene,  psychology,  and 
physiology  she  was  constantly  accumulating,  the 
debilitative  effects  that  adenoidal  breathing  might 
exercise  upon  an  entire  constitution  and  mentality. 

Poor  Harry,  and  his  cancerous  predilection  for  the 
kind  of  thievery  that  almost  invariably  stacked  up 
to  not  even  petty  larceny!  He  could  withstand  a 
jewel  chest/but  not  a  tool  chest.  Would  steal  the  robe 
from  an  automobile,  provided  it  was  not  a  luxurious 
one.  Once,  when  his  grandmother  at  great  difficulty 
had  procured  for  him  a  clerkship,  he  confiscated  the 
nickel-plated  faucets  out  of  the  wash  room,  barely 
escaping  prosecution.  Only  the  utter  triviality  of  his 
thievery  and  the  fight  in  Mrs.  Schum  saved  him  from 
the  law.  She  was  as  indomitable  in  her  protection 
of  him  as  the  granite  flesh  of  rocks. 

Quiet,  sensitive,  with  rather  a  girlish  face,  slow  to 
beard  and  quick  to  quiver,  Harry  was  invariably 
liked  during  the  period  he  held  a  position,  but  month 
to  month  saw  him  from  a  clerkship  in  a  real-estate 
office  to  window  decorator  for  a  retail  paper-flower 
concern,  salesman  in  the  novelty  and  stationery  de 
partment  of  a  bookstore,  and  once  in  the  children's 
book  section  of  a  department  store. 

He  was  rarely  apprehended,  usually  abandoning 
his  position,  with  his  absurd  loot  already  under  cover, 
and  the  loss  leaking  out  later,  if  at  all. 

Invariably,  as  if  by  way  of  confession,  he  brought 
home  to  his  grandmother  the  proceeds  from  these 
petty  sales,  effected  by  who  knows  what  device, 
dropping  down  into  her  lap,  almost  sadly  and  with 
a  shrinkage  from  what  was  sure  to  follow,  either  the 
few  dollars  or  the  bauble  of  a  bit  of  jewelry. 


STAR  DUST  345 

She  would  cry  up  at  him  and  wring  her  poor 
hands,  and  then  he  would  go  off  into  his  little  room 
adjoining  the  kitchen,  originally  intended  as  maid's 
room,  and  sit  with  his  head  down  in  his  hands,  back 
rounded,  and  all  his  throat-constricting  capacity  for 
meekness  out  in  his  attitude. 

And,  presently,  her  sobs  subsided,  Mrs.  Schum 
would  creep  in  after  him,  and  behind  that  closed  door 
there  was  no  telling  what  long  hours  of  pleading  and 
abjuration  took  place.  But,  next  morning,  in  her 
little  black  bonnet,  the  rust  out  in  her  black  dress 
and  the  "want  ad. "  sheet  cockily  enough  beneath  her 
arm,  Mrs.  Schum  would  set  out  with  him  to  combat, 
by  the  decency  of  her  presence,  some  of  the  difficulties 
of  seeking  a  new  position  with  only  one  or  two  time- 
and  thumb-worn  references. 

His  grandmother's  and  Lilly's  possessions  were 
sacred  to  him,  but  every  morning,  after  the  two 
roomers  had  departed,  Mrs.  Schum  would  tiptoe 
after,  locking  their  doors  and  inserting  the  keys  in 
her  petticoat  pocket. 

"I  like  to  keep  things  locked,"  she  explained  to 
Lilly  one  day,  upon  being  intercepted.  "You  can 
never  tell  when  a  sneak  thief  will  break  into  these 
apartment  houses  that  haven't  hall  service.  I've 
even  heard  of  them  entering  through  the  fire  escape." 

"Of  course,  dear,"  said  Lilly,  through  heartache 
for  her. 

There  was  an  indescribable  sweetness  in  Harry's 
attitude  toward  Zoe.  There  had  been  countless  long 
evenings  of  her  little  girlhood  when  no  waiting  beside 
her  bedside  was  too  tedious — sometimes  during  three 
and  four  evenings  a  week  of  Lilly's  enforced  absence 
in  the  pursuit  of  vaudeville  novelties.  He  was  tire 
less  and  faithful  as  a  watchdog,  keeping  awake  by 


346  STAR  DUST 

whittling  at  something  no  more  fantastic  than  a 
clothespin.  There  were  hundreds  of  them  scattered 
about  the  house.  It  was  the  sole  form  his  idleness 
took.  He  painted  heads  and  eyes  on  them — cleverly, 
too — for  Zoe,  but  as  she  grew  older  she  began  to 
disdain  them,  bullying  him  in  much  the  fashion  her 
mother  had  before  her. 

"I  can  hop  up  four  steps  on  one  foot,"  Lilly,  with 
a  little  catch  at  her  heart,  chanced  to  overhear  on 
one  occasion. 

"No,  you  can't,"  said  Harry,  smilingly  and  a  little 
teasingly. 

Catching  at  her  ankle  and  flinging  her  curls,  she 
made  an  unstaggering  and  easy  ascent  of  not  four,  but 
eight. 

"There!"  she  cried,  slapping  Harry  boldly  and 
resoundingly  on  the  cheek.  "Don't  you  ever  dare 
say  I  cannot  do  what  I  know  I  can  do." 

It  left  the  red  print  of  her  little  hand,  and  it  was 
literally  as  if,  as  he  looked  away  from  her,  he  had 
turned  the  other  cheek. 

Almost  immediately  she  caught  his  hand,  placing 
her  warm  face  to  its  back. 

"Harry,  I'm  a  devil!  I'm  sorry.  You  know  I 
don't  mean  to  be  a  devil.  Harry!  Are  you  angry? 
You're  not!  Please!  Be  nice,  Harry — tell  me  a 
story — Har-ry." 

"Once  upon  a  time — "  he  began,  his  light-blue 
eyes  almost  with  the  patient  look  of  the  blind. 

A  little  later,  there  occurred  an  infinitesimal  but 
telling  incident  which  served  to  dissipate  whatever 
growing  qualms  may  have  disturbe4  Lilly  over  the 
rearing  of  her  child  in  this  atmosphere  of  petty  crime. 

One  evening,   while  Harry   was  performing  his 


STAR  DUST  347 

willing  chore  of  carrying  out  for  his  grandmother  the 
little  dinner  prepared  by  Mrs.  Schum  and  partaken 
of  by  Lilly  and  Zoe  at  a  small  card  table  opened  up 
beside  the  window  of  their  room,  Zoe  announced, 
with  a  certain  high-handedness  with  which  Lilly 
was  more  and  more  hard  pressed  to  cope: 

"I  want  my  dresses  longer.  That  big  red-headed 
boy  in  the  white  jacket  said  to  me  when  I  went  into 
the  drug  store  over  on  Columbus  Avenue  to-day  for 
some  licorice  drops :  'That's  right.  Wear 'em  short ; 
you've  got  the  stems." 

"What  a  vulgar,  horrid  remark!" 

"Well,  I  want  my  dresses  longer." 

Lilly  regarded  her  daughter  with  concern  troubling 
up  her  eyes. 

"Don't  ever  go  into  that  store  again,  Zoe.  I've 
a  mind  to  stop  in  there  myself  and  talk  to  the 
proprietor." 

Later  that  same  evening,  Harry,  with  a  purpling 
eye  and  an  opened  lip  which  he  tried  vainly  to 
smuggle  past  his  grandmother,  crept  into  his  room. 
But  she  was  too  quick  for  him,  and  at  her  high  cry 
of  shock  Lilly  rushed  into  the  hallway.  There  was 
an  utterly  alien  and  vibrating  note  of  anger  in 
Harry's  voice. 

"For  God's  sake,  gramaw,  be  quiet!  It's  nothing. 
Had  a  row  with  that  red-headed  clerk  down  at  the 
drug  store.  Took  the  freshness  out  of  him  for  a 
while." 

Lilly  tiptoed  back  to  her  room.  All  through  a  fit 
ful  night  she  woke  in  little  starts,  kissing  into  the 
bare  white  arm  of  her  child  as  if  she  could  not  have 
done  with  the  assurance  of  her  safe  proximity. 

It  was  less  than  a  month  later,  and  over  a  year 

after  the  adenoidal  operation,  that  Harry  returned 
23 


348  STAR  DUST 

home  one  evening  from  the  real-estate  office  with 
nine  dollars  and  forty  cents  in  his  pocket  from  the 
proceeds  of  the  nickel-plated  wash-room  faucets  and 
several  liquid-soap  attachments. 

About  eight  months  after  Ida  Blair's  play  had  lain 
gathering  mold  in  the  lower  drawer  of  Bruce  Visi 
goth's  desk,  he  sent  for  Lilly. 

Their  office  relationship  since  the  stuffy  June 
evening  over  the  reading  of  the  manuscript  had  been 
resumed,  with  invisible  joindure.  Together  they  con 
tinued  in  biweekly  conferences  to  compile  the  end 
less  cycle  of  programs  that  moved  like  a  chain  along 
the  cogs  of  city  to  city.  There  were  nine  Enterprise 
Amusement  Theaters  now,  the  newest  red-headed 
pin  on  the  circuit  map  as  far  west  as  Tulsa,  their 
booking  route  as  yet  independent  of  any  of  the 
larger  and  recent  vaudeville  mergers. 

It  was  an  office  boast  and  pleasantry  that  Lilly 
could  recite  offhand  through  the  current  program  of 
any  of  the  nine  theaters,  leaping  glibly  from  motion 
picture,  to  acrobat,  and  sister  acts. 

This  was  hardly  true,  but  her  touch  at  the  steering 
wheel  of  her  department  was  sensitive  and  sure. 
She  could  substitute  for  a  quarantined  team  of 
jumping  Arabs  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  with  hardly 
more  than  a  sleight  of  hand  through  her  card  index 
and  a  telegram  or  two.  She  knew  that  'Memphis 
would  not  stand  for  a  pickaninny  act,  and  that  the 
same  was  sure  fire  in  Trenton,  and  was  familiar  with 
every  house  manager  by  long  -  distance  -  telephone 
voice.  The  department  was  more  and  more  the 
well-oiled  engine  under  a  light  steering  hand  that 
Lilly  wielded  well  and  wisely. 

Her  judgment  of  the  incoming  reports  of  the 


STAR  DUST  349 

various  house  managers,  or  a  try-out  act,  although 
technically  subject  to  Bruce  Visigoth's  signature, 
went  usually  unchallenged.  She  virtually  was  her 
department,  particularly  as  the  realty  aspect  of  the 
enterprise  came  more  and  more  to  assume  the  pro 
portions  of  big  business.  Within  her  little  office  of 
mahogany  appointments  she  worked  with  an  allot 
ment  of  stenographers  and  clerks.  She  had  an 
assistant,  too;  at  least,  she  confiscated  him  from  the 
press  department — one  Leon  Greenberg,  a  young 
night  student  from  New  York  University,  with  an 
enormous  profile  rendered  positively  carnivorous  of 
thrust  by  his  struggle  up  from  First  Street  and 
Avenue  A,  which  is  mire  with  a  pull  to  it. 

Her  own  capacity  was  unnamed.  She  was  prob 
ably  still  down  on  the  books  as  stenographer,  al 
though  at  fifty  dollars  a  week  now,  and  it  was  six 
years  since  she  had  taken  a  letter. 

It  was  a  gray  day  in  cold  and  tardy  spring  when 
Bruce  Visigoth  sent  for  her — one  of  those  heavy 
afternoons  that  darken  up  at  four  o'clock  and  press 
thick  as  gravy  against  the  windows.  He  was  seated 
at  his  desk,  hands  laced  at  the  back  of  his  head  and 
one  foot  propped  on  an  open  drawer,  his  male 
stenographer  typing  at  the  remote  corner  of  a  wide 
and  rather  luxuriously  appointed  office.  Except  for 
the  green  cone  of  light  over  him,  the  room  was 
plushy  with  dusk. 

"About  that  play — "  he  began. 

"What  play?"  she  said,  seating  herself  in  the  en 
tirely  easy  business  manner  she  had  with  him. 

' 'The  Web." 

Her  strong  white  hand  out  from  its  immaculate 
linen  cuff  lay  unnervously  on  the  glass  top  of  his 
desk,  but  the  fingers  now  began  to  lift  in  rotation. 


3so  STAR  DUST 

"Yes?" 

"I  talked  it  over  with  my  brother  before  he  re 
turned  to  Chicago  yesterday.  Thought  the  firm 
might  be  interested." 

"Yes?" 

"He  doesn't  see  it." 

"He— wouldn't." 

He  bent  a  sliver  of  ivory  paper  knife  almost  double. 

"I  should  have  taken  this  matter  up  some  time 
ago,  but  the  sudden  death  of  my  sister  Pauline's 
husband,  Doctor  Enlow — " 

"Mrs.  Blair  understands  that." 

"And  you?" 

"Well,"  she  said,  looking  off  and  resolutely  keeping 
her  smile,  ' '  I  guess  it  means  '  The  Web '  must  resume 
its  journey  again." 

"No,  it  doesn't." 

"Why?" 

"It  means  that  I  am  going  to  produce  it  on  my 
own." 

She  slid  to  the  edge  of  the  chair,  her  hand  closing 
over  the  desk  edge. 

"Oh!    Oh!" 

"Isn't  that  what  you  want?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  that  is  my  reason." 

"You  mean  you  don't  see  it,  either?" 

"But  you  do." 

"But—" 

"No  'buts.'  She  goes  into  rehearsal  for  a  spring 
try-out  in  Baltimore,  Stamford,  or  any  of  the  dog 
towns.  I'm  giving  the  manuscript  to  Forbes  to  read 
this  week.  He's  the  man  to  direct  that  type  of  thing. 
I'm  going  to  throw  in  ten  or  twenty  thousand  on  your 
judgment." 


STAR  DUST  351 

"You're  serious?"  He  held  out  his  lean  hand. 
' Til  send  for  Ida  Blair." 

"No— please!" 

"Why?" 

"Sit  down." 

She  did,  biting  back  excitement. 

"I  don't  know  how  to  talk  to  that  little  woman. 
She  depresses  me.  This  is  your  venture  and  mine." 

"But  her  play!  Its  production  will  mean  her 
resurrection.  Her  monument  to  a  memory.  Her 
protest.  A  chance  to  get  her  on  her  feet.  An  oppor 
tunity  for  a  home,  a  background,  a  reason  for  living 
to  a  woman  who  has  lost  every  reason.  It's  her 
play  and  her  chance." 

"And  it  is  our  venture." 

"I'm  not  afraid." 

"Are  we  partners,  then?" 

"If  I  had  the  money,  yes,  to  my  limit." 

"I  don't  mean  that." 

«<T   A^   " 

1  do. 

"All  right;  go  your  limit." 

*  *  My  limit  ?  How  far  would  six  one-hundred-dollar 
municipal  bonds  and — ' 

"Good.  I'll  sell  you  six  per  cent  of  a  twenty- 
thcusand-dollar  venture  for  the  six  hundred." 

"Six — percent — twenty — thousand —  Why,  that's 
not  a  man-to-man  proposition!  You're  treating  me 
like  a  child." 

"All  right,  then;  three  per  cent  for  the  six 
hundred." 

"Done!  But  no  nonsense.  If  I  lose,  I  lose.  Man 
to  man." 

"Man  to  man,'"  he  said,  clasping  her  hand  and 
drinking  down  deep  into  her  gaze. 

And  so,  when  she  hurried  out  to  the  high  ledge  to 


352  STAR  DUST 

which  Ida  Blair's  figure  had  somehow  shaped  itself 
as  the  years  went  on,  she  stood  for  a  moment  to 
steady  the  hand  she  placed  on  that  shoulder. 

"Ida!"  The  older  woman  raised  her  eyes  of  the 
peculiarly  washed  quality  of  gray  that  has  faded 
from  repeated  scaldings  in  hot  water.  ' '  Mr.  Visigoth 
wants  you  in  his  office,  dear — now." 

She  kept  her  voice  out  of  quaver,  but  it  had  a 
singing  quality  like  a  plucked  violin  string. 


CHAPTER  IV 

AS  Lilly's  months  went,  the  one  that  followed  was 
**•  abloom  with  events.  In  her  vague,  untutored 
way  she  was  already  reaching  out,  through  her 
daughter,  toward  a  subject  about  which  she  knew 
nothing,  but,  in  an  inchoate  way,  felt  a  great  deal. 

The  New  York  State  fight  for  woman's  suffrage 
had  not  yet  reached  its  victorious  culmination,  and, 
reading  announcement  of  a  great  parade  up  Fifth 
Avenue  for  a  Saturday  afternoon,  she  took  Zoe. 

The  smell  of  spring  was  dancingly  out.  Shop 
windows  bloomed  with  the  millinery  of  May.  Open 
street  cars,  open  skies,  and  openwork  shirt  waists  had 
arrived. 

They  climbed  the  flank  of  an  omnibus  and  rode 
down  to  the  Washington  Arch  in  a  midair  snapping 
with  bunting. 

It  was  on  one  of  those  irresistible  afternoons — 
radiant  with  the  sun -washed  geometry  of  three 
architectural  renaissances,  a  monastic -fronted  fur 
emporium,  a  Parthenon  of  a  library,  a  Doric- 
columned  bank — that  Lilly  and  Zoe  lumbered  their 
omnibus  way  through  the  daily  carnival  of  the  most 
rococo  avenue  in  the  world. 

There  was  the  flare  of  a  sea  gull  to  Zoe — no  con 
taining  her.  Little  snatches  of  song  bubbled.  She 
was  a  freshet  of  delight. 

* '  Look  at  that  tray  of  violets,  Lilly !  I  must  have 
a  bunch." 

''Zoe,  don't  lean  over  so  far!" 


354  STAR  DUST 

"See  the  yellow  satin  in  that  shop  window,  Lilly! 
I'd  love  to  wind  it  round  me.  It's  like  sun ! " 

"See  those  jams  of  women  in  white,  Zoe,  waiting 
to  form  into  line!" 

"I'd  love  to  march!" 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  there — there's  something  sort 
of  onward  about  it." 

"Exactly!    Onward!    Forward!    March!" 

With  a  precocity  that  never  ceased  to  amuse  and 
delight  Lilly,  Zoe,  while  only  half  understanding  the 
content  of  an  occasion,  could  somehow  imbibe  its 
essence.  She  leaned  now  over  the  rail  of  the  omnibus, 
the  cross-town  streets,  as  they  jogged  past,  already 
colloid  masses  of  women  waiting  to  fall  into  line. 

"Isn't  it  queer,  Lilly,  that  after  all  these  centuries 
and  centuries  women  are  just  beginning  to — what 
did  that  woman  on  the  program  call  it  down  it 
Cooper  Union  hall  the  other  night — function  in  the 
government  ?  Why  has  it  taken  them  so  long  to  ask 
for  their  half  in  the  say-so  of  things?" 

"Any  great  movement,  Zoe,  must  have  very  slow 
beginnings.  Think  for  what  ages  man  lived  without 
Christianity!" 

"Yes;  but  look  how  long  it  has  been  here.'* 

"Reckoning  in  geology,  Zoe,  and  compared  with 
the  age  of  mountains  and  oceans,  two  thousand  years 
isn't  long." 

"I  think  it  is.'1 

"You  darling!" 

They  alighted  at  the  Washington  Arch,  jamming 
their  way  into  the  tight  battalion  of  spectators  already 
lining  both  sides  of  lower  Fifth  Avenue.  The  head  of 
the  parade  was  already  forming,  a  slim  young  leader 
holding  in  her  white  mount  with  difficulty. 


STAR  DUST  355 

"Lilly,  she  looks  like  our  picture  of  Jeanne  d'Arc 
when  she  sees  the  vision!" 

"She  is  heeding  a  vision,  Zoe — of  to-morrow." 

"I  feel  so— so  thrilled,  Lilly.    Do  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Lilly,  for  some  reason  breathing  hard. 
"Oh,  I  do!" 

There  was  a  break  of  music,  and  all  about  them 
women  darting  into  line,  sudden  banners  floating 
out,  and  the  white  horse  prancing  in  the  archway, 
for  all  the  world  as  if  spun  at  a  tangent  off  the  narra 
tive  frieze  of  the  arch. 

At  the  Eighth  Street  curb,  where  tney  stood,  five 
hundred  women,  with  standards  lifted,  stiffened 
suddenly  into  formation,  a  deputy  from  their  ranks, 
a  buyer,  by  the  way,  for  the  largest  cloak-and-suit 
house  in  the  world,  calling  short,  quick  orders  and 
distributing  American  flags. 

The  air  was  rent  with  silk  and  brass;  a  simoom 
of  rapture  raced  over  Zoe.  She  danced  on  the  balls 
of  her  feet.  It  was  then  that  a  deputy,  with  a  face 
that  recalled  newspaper  reproductions  of  it,  spied 
her. 

"Here,  little  girl!  You!  Oh,  lovely!  Could  you 
manage  this  banner,  dear,  and  lead  this  section? 
Miss,  is  this  lovely  child  your  sister?  Do  let  her 
lead!" 

"She's  my  daughter." 

"Come;  you  may  fall  in  line  right  behind  her. 
Do  you  mind  if  I  unpin  your  sister's  curls?  Oh, 
she's  lovely — " 

"I  said  she's  my  daughter!" 

"Here,  right  in  front,  dear — my — oh,  what  a 
find!" 

And  so,  with  her  somewhat  bewildered  parent  in 
the  ranks  behind  her,  her  little  black  frock  wrapped 


356  STAR  DUST 

in  a  purple-and-yellow  banner,  head  up,  eyes  stars, 
Zoe  Penny  led  the  largest  district  of  Greater  New 
York  up  Fifth  Avenue,  a  constant  and  running  line 
of  applause  following  her  lead. 

She  was  youth  sonnetized.  Cameras  clicked  after 
her,  and,  with  the  martial  music  tickling  her  blood, 
her  head  went  higher  still,  like  a  stag's.  To  her 
mother,  following  after,  it  seemed  that  the  loudest 
of  all  must  be  music  within  her  own  heart,  and  so  she 
marched  on,  sprayed,  as  it  were,  by  the  wave  of  con 
stant  applause  as  it  broke  over  Zoe  and  diedjiown 
at  the  rank  and  file. 

It  was  dusk  when  they  reached  Fifty-ninth 
Street,  and  in  the  jam  of  disbanding  and  quite  a 
,  little  demonstration  over  Zoe  by  the  section  she  had 
distinguished,  they  worked  their  way  out  finally 
toward  the  cross-town  street  car,  hand  in  hand,  like 
two  ecstatic,  rather  bewildered  babes  in  the  wood. 

At  a  touch  upon  her  shoulder  Lilly  turned,  spun, 
rather,  under  high  tension,  to  encounter  the  well- 
bred  hesitancy  of  an  exceedingly  slender  woman,  a 
very  small  head  set  on  the  stem  of  a  long,  gracile 
neck,  something  hauntingly  familiar  in  the  somewhat 
heart-shaped  face  and  the  far-apart  eyes  that  were 
considerably  younger  than  the  white  hair  which 
framed  them. 

' '  I  beg  your  pardon  " — in  a  voice  perfectly  rounded 
of  edges — "but  my  husband  is  so  enchanted  with  the 
little  girl  that  we  are  taking  the  liberty  of  asking  to 
meet  her.  Won't  you  permit  me  to  present  my 
husband,  Gedney  Daab?  You  have  heard  of  him, 
I  presume." 

Lilly  had.  The  "Dolorosa"  above  her  desk  was 
a  print  from  a  Gedney  Daab. 

He  stepped  forward  then,  lanky  and  rugged,  with 


STAR  DUST  357 

a  great  shock  of  upstanding  gray  hair,  with  the  path 
of  his  fingers  through  it  and  his  features  with  no 
scheme  at  all.  Just  very  delightfully  irregular,  he 
jutted  out  of  any  crowd. 

"Zoe,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daab  want  to  meet  you." 

She  lifted  her  clean  gaze,  dropped  a  courtesy,  and 
held  out  her  hand  with  the  short,  curved  gesture  of 
childhood. 

"Hello!"  he  said,  the  timbre  of  real  youth  in  his 
voice,  which  childhood  is  so  quick  to  detect  from  the 
silly  enameling  of  tone  coated  on  by  grown-ups  for 
the  occasion.  "I  want  to  paint  you,  youngster." 

"Oh,  Lilly,  what  fun!" 

1 '  Then  she  is  your  sister  ? ' ' 

"Oh  no,  Mrs.  Daab;  she  is  my  daughter." 

"But  the  name — " 

"It's  our  way  together." 

"How  droll!" 

"Do  you  think  I'm  pretty?" 

Gedney  Daab  looked  down  at  her  ardent  artless- 
ness  without  a  burst  of  laughter. 

"Oh,  as  little  girls  go." 

"Zoe  knows  God  has  merely  given  her  a  fair  urn 
of  a  body,  Mr.  Daab,  which  she,  in  turn,  must  fill 
with  beauty  of  mind  and  spirit." 

"You  are  the  Dolorosa,  aren't  you?"  continued 
Zoe,  turning  to  Mrs.  Daab.  "The  sad  one  with  the 
tears  that  don't  show,  from  crying  on  the  inside  of 
you." 

It  was  not  until  then  that  this  dawned  upon  Lilly. 
Those  eyes  of  the  Dolorosa,  bleeding  tears,  were 
Mrs.  Daab's. 

"You'll  have  to  paint  me  as  glad — won't  you? — 
glad  all  over  clear  from  the  inside." 

"Yes,  Sunlight;   I  rather  think  I  will." 


358  STAR  DUST 

"Will  you  permit  my  husband  and  me  to  take  you 
home,  Mrs. — " 

"Penny." 

"Oh,  please,  Lilly!" 

"We  live  rather  far  up  from  here — Ninety-first 
Street,  West." 

"And  we  live  at  Park  Hill;  so  you  see  we  hardly 
regard  that  as  far." 

They  were  presently  riding  through  the  Park,  Zoe 
facing  the  three  of  them  in  the  soft  gray  interior  of 
the  Daab  limousine.  She  was  absolutely  artless. 

"I've  been  in  a  taxi  three  times  and  a  hansom 
once.  But  I  prefer  this.  I  shall  have  my  own  some 
day — only,  purple  upholstery  instead  of  gray — sort 
of  wine  color — " 

"An  early  eye  to  effect,  I  see,  young  miss." 

"I'm  the  class  beauty,"  she  explained.  "I  didn't 
care  to  be  that  at  first — Lilly  says  it  is  just  a  lovely 
accident  and  might  happen  to  anyone  else.  She 
wanted  me  to  be  class  president;  so  I  decided  to 
be  both." 

"You  will  observe  that  my  daughter  is  not  chiefly 
notable  for  her  reticence." 

"You  come  to  my  studio,  little  lady,  and  I  am 
going  to  paint  you  just  as  golden  and  radiantly  inno 
cent  as  you  are." 

1 '  What  is  '  radiantly  innocent '  ? " 

"Good  Lord!  I  don't  know  any  definition  of  it 
except — you." 

"Zoe  has  no  innocence  in  one  sense,  Mr.  Daab. 
Her  real  innocence  lies  in  the  fact  that  life  has  no 
ugly  secrets  from  her.  She  knows  the  beautiful  from 
the  ugly,  and  why  it  is  so.  I  think  that  is  what  Mr. 
Daab  means  by  'radiant  innocence,'  Zoe.  Fearless 
knowledge  of  truth." 


STAR  DUST  359 

He  whistled  softly  in  the  gloom. 

" Extraordinary!"  said  Mrs.  Daab.  "And  you 
are  one  of  us — aren't  you,  dear?" 

"For  suffrage?  Oh  yes;  and  I  am  going  to  be  a 
real  one  when  I  grow  up." 

"What  else  are  you  going  to  be ? " 

"A  singer." 

"You  said  that  as  if  you  meant  it." 

"I  do.  I've  already  heard  nine  operas.  I  am 
allowed  to  be  anything  I  want  so  long  as  I  get  to 
the  biggest— the  very  biggest!" 

' '  Are  you  studying  ? ' ' 

"I've  had  piano  lessons  for  five  years." 

"I'm  looking  about  now  for  a  vocal  teacher  for 
her.  She  may  be  too  young,  but  at  least  I  want  her 
voice  tried.  I — we  think  she  has  quite  an  amazing 
range." 

"Have  you  tried  Trieste?" 

"Oh,  I  haven't  dared  contemplate  anyone  so 
inaccessible  as  he." 

Mrs.  Daab  turned  her  head. 

"Gedney,"  she  said,  "couldn't  you  give  her  a 
note  to  Trieste?" 

"Good!"  he  said,  feeling  for  a  card  and  scrawling 
across  its  face.  "This  will  pass  you  directly  to  his 
nibs." 

"You  couldn't  have  granted  us  a  bigger  favor," 
said  Lilly,  feeling  her  face  glow. 

"Then  you  grant  me  one.  Bring  your  little  girl 
to  my  Fifty-ninth  Street  studio.  I  want  to  paint 
her." 

"Indeed  I  will!11 

"When?" 

"Saturday  afternoon  is  our  only  time." 

' '  Fine.    To-day  two  weeks  ? ' ' 


360  STAR  DUST 

"Yes." 

They  were  at  Ninety -first  Street  now,  and  he  saw 
them  up  to  their  door. 

"Good-by,"  he  said.  "You're  a  great  youngster, 
and  you've  picked  a  great  little  mother  for  yourself. 
Mrs.  Daab  and  I  want  you  both  at  the  studio  often." 

Up  in  their  room,  they  embraced,  Zoe's  arms  tight 
about  her  mother's  neck. 

"It's  begun,  Lilly,  to  be  wonderful!" 

"What?" 

"Life!" 

The  Saturday  afternoon  following,  in  a  brown- 
stone  house  in  West  Forty-sixth  Street  that  was  more 
like  a  museum  of  the  storied  loot  of  many  lands, 
Trieste  himself  opened  the  pair  of  Florentine  doors, 
originally  unhinged  from  a  campanile  outside  of 
Rome,  of  his  very  private  studio,  without  appoint 
ment,  to  the  magic  of  Gedney  Daab's  scrawled  card. 

He  had  a  head,  Lilly  decided,  like  the  one  of 
Praxiteles  in  the  St.  Louis  Museum  of  Fine  Arts — 
only,  the  bust  implied  young  hair,  and  Trieste's  curls 
were  full  of  gray  and  the  lines  of  his  face  were  slashed 
deeply.  He  listened,  while  Lilly  talked  her  brief 
preamble,  as  he  invariably  did,  with  his  eyes  closed 
and  finger  tips  touching.  Finally,  he  opened  them, 
regarding  Lilly  from  under  swollen,  rather  diabetic 
lids. 

"You  should  sing,"  he  said,  his  acquired  language 
grating  slightly  against  the  native  one. 

"No!    No!" 

"You  are  young,"  he  said,  running  his  eyes  down 
her  body,  "and  fine  and  big  and  strong." 

She  rose  as  if  to  throw  off  the  crowding  stress  of 
the  moment. 


STAR  DUST  361 

"Once,  "she  said;  "but  that  is  all  over  now.  My 
little  girl—" 

"You  have  temperament — let  me  hear,"  he  said, 
reaching  out  to  the  piano  and  striking  out  a  bold  C. 
"Sing  the  scale." 

"Please!"  she  cried,  the  situation  an  agony  to  her. 
"Not  me.  My  little— " 

"Why,  Lilly!"  said  Zoe,  regarding  her  mother 
with  wide,  unaffected  eyes.  "Sing  the  scale,  dear." 

"Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do" — through  a  crimson 
flush. 

He  seemed  to  lose  interest  then,  turning  to  Zoe. 

"Let  me  hear  you,"  he  said. 

"Shall  I  sing  'Jocelyn'  or  'How  Like  a  Bird'?" 

' '  Anything — something  simpler. ' ' 

"Schubert,  then,  Zoe." 

In  her  straight  frock,  with  its  wide  patent-leather 
belt  and  flat  white  collar,  the  cascade  of  her  hair 
down  over  it,  Zoe  held  the  center  of  the  vast  studio, 
singing  straight  into  her  mother's  eyes. 

It  seemed  to  Lilly,  at  the  sound  of  that  voice,  not 
yet  cleared  of  childish  treble,  but  as  ready  to  rise  as 
a  lark,  that  every  ounce  of  her  blood  must  be  gushing 
against  her  throat;  so,  after  it  was  finished,  she  sat 
on  quite  dumbly,  staring  at  the  manner  in  which 
Trieste  remained  sitting  with  his  eyes  closed. 

"Lyric  soprano,"  he  said,  finally.  "Fine!  Big! 
God-given!" 

" Maestro — you  mean  that?" 

"Heigh-ho!"  he  said  on  a  sigh,  walking  over  and 
placing  his  hand  on  Zoe's  curls.  "I  make  up  my 
mind  I  am  seeck  of  this  business.  I  wait  only  for  this 
war  to  live  my  day  quietly  in  Capri,  where  I  have  my 
casa,  and  now  a  new  nightingale  flies  in  at  my 
window.  Twice  now.  Ten  years  ago  comes  Car- 


362  STAR  DUST 

rienta  out  of  just  such  a  clear  sky,  and  once  more, 
when  I  am  again  sure  that  one  voice  is  only  more 
unmusical  than  the  rest,  comes  this — " 

Standing  there,  Lilly  was  fighting  an  impulse  to 
faint.  She  remembered,  with  terror,  previous  sensa 
tions,  and  fought  off  the  vertigo,  biting  down  into 
her  lips.  She  wanted  to  smile,  but  her  mouth  felt 
numb,  as  if  it  dragged  instead  of  lifted. 

"You — you  make  us  very  happy — maestro.11 

"Some  day,"  cried  Zoe,  still  thrilling  from  her 
effort,  "I  will  sing  until  my  high  C  hits  the  sky!" 

'  I  think  you  will,  bella  mia,  if  you  have  in  you  the 
power  to  work  for  it." 

"I  have.'" 

"Art  is  the  most  cruel  paymaster  in  the  world.  It 
exacts  full  recompense,  toil,  and  heartache  before  it 
deals  out  a  first  payment  in  success." 

"I'll  pay!  I'll  pay  for  what  I  want,  and  most  of 
all  I  want  to  sing!" 

She  trilled  up  a  brace  of  scales  for  him  then, 
and  there  were  minute  questions  of  health  and 
habits,  and,  finally,  in  a  waiting  pause,  Lilly  found 
word  to  ask  the  question  against  which  her  lips 
stiffened. 

' '  What — are — y our  terms — maestro  ? '  * 

Something  strange  happened  then,  his  well-known 
acumen  immediately  asserting  itself.  It  was  as  if 
he  had  slipped  into  another  personality. 

"Fifteen  dollars  a  lesson.  She  must  have  three  a 
week  and  her  school  work  and  other  studies  should 
be  reduced." 

"Lilly — we're  too  poor  for  that!" 

"1  —  I'm  afraid  my  little  girl  is  right,  maestro. 
I — I  couldn't  even  pay  that  for  all  three.  I'm  em 
ployed  myself,  you  see." 


STAR  DUST  363 

"Oh,"  he  said,  and  walked  off  to  the  window,  dilly 
dallying  on  his  heels  and  looking  out. 

Finally  he  turned,  with  a  gesture  of  dismissal. 

"I  have  never  before,  except  Carrienta,  done  such 
a  thing.  It  must  be  a  secret  between  us.  My  belief 
is  that  art  should  be  as  well  paid  as  any  life  work, 
whether  it  is  dentistry  or  lawmaking  or  storekeep- 
ing.  But  your  child  here — they  do  not  come  so 
every  day.  In  ten  years,  with  hundreds  of  pupils 
each  year,  she  is  the  greatest  since  Carrienta.  But  I 
must  have  first  right  to  her.  You  hear,  first  right! 
I  will  teach  her  free  of  charge.  Leave  your  name  and 
address  with  my  secretary  as  you  go  out.  Send  her 
Monday  at  four.  Loose  clothing.  Not  even  corset 
waists.  Good  afternoon.  Good-by — Zoe" — placing 
his  hands  on  her  curls  as  if  for  their  warmth. 

In  the  room  adjoining,  under  whisper  of  a  very  soft 
pedal,  some  one,  probably  a  waiting  pupil,  was  play 
ing  the  indomitable  pianoforte  composition,  "Melody 
in  F."  Staring  at  her  daughter,  an  old  conceit  of 
Lilly's  girlhood  came  flowing  back.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  a  proscenium  arch  of  music  was  forming  over 
Zoe  and  that  her  voice,  a  high-flung  scarf  of  melody, 
was  winding  itself  reverently  round  a  star. 

That  afternoon,  Bruce  Visigoth  again  asked  Lilly 
to  marry  him. 

Taking  advantage  of  the  quiet  of  a  Saturday  after 
noon  half  holiday,  she  had  returned  to  the  office  to 
clear  her  desk  of  an  accumulation  of  loose  ends. 

In  spite  of  herself,  an  extraordinary  depression, 
low  as  storm  clouds,  was  gathering  over  the  excita 
tion  whipped  up  by  Trieste's  acceptance  of  Zoe. 

The  tight  squeeze  of  a  lump  was  gathering  in  her 
throat.  Finally  she  laid  her  cheek  to  the  desk  and 

24 


364  STAR  DUST 

cried  a  little  pool  of  her  unaccountable  melancholy 
on  to  the  glassed  surface. 

Bruce  Visigoth  found  her  so,  although,  at  his  en 
trance,  she  sprang  from  the  mound  of  her  misery, 
violently  simulating  affairs  at  a  lower  drawer. 

" Hello!"  he  cried,  then,  eying  her  crumpled  cheek 
and  the  lane  of  tears:  "Ah,  I  say  now!  Come, 
come ;  this  won't  do.  What's  up  ? " 

She  rubbed  her  bare  hand  furiously  across  the 
ravages  of  her  sharp  depression. 

"Nothing.  I — I  guess  I'm  blue,"  she  said,  in  a 
half  laugh.  "Something  wonderful  has  happened  to 
Zoe,  and  I — it's  made  me  so  happy,  I'm  blue.  That's 
it — so — happy — I  'm  blue. ' ' 

"What  is  the  wonderful  thing?" 

She  told  him. 

It  was  then  he  caught  her  hands. 

"Lilly,  marry  me!  Make  it  possible!  Don't  let 
the  years  lead  you  into  a  blind  alley.  You  are 
bound  inevitably  to  lose  a  child  like  Zoe — to  life. 
That's  why  you  are  so  unaccountably  blue,  Lilly; 
the  writing  is  on  the  wall." 

"No!"  she  cried,  plunging  past  him,  her  hat  in 
hand  and  her  throat  now  a  cave  of  the  winds  for  her 
unreleased  sobs.  "The  years  have  brought  me,  Zoe. 
She  is  my  fulfillment.  You  can't  frighten  me — life 
cannot  take  her  from  me.  I'm  not  afraid — only,  I 
can't  bear  anything  to-night,  least  of  all  from  you — " 

"Lilly,  you're  not—" 

"Let  me  go!  I'm  all  right — only  tired — that's  all. 
Terribly— terribly— tired. ' ' 

She  was  presently  on  her  homeward  way,  walking 
swiftly,  almost,  it  would  seem,  a  little  madly,  through 
a  May  evening  that  hung  as  thinly  as  one  thickness 
of  a  veil. 


STAR  DUST  365 

At  Seventy-second  Street  she  veered  suddenly  and 
rather  unaccountably  to  Riverside  Drive  and  down 
into  a  ledge  of  park  that  dips  like  a  terrace  to  the 
Hudson  River. 

An  asphalt  walk  led  in  festoons  from  high  parky 
nooks  that  sheltered  couples,  down  to  the  water- 
slapped  edge  of  docks,  where  the  tidey  surf  had  a 
thick,  inarticulate  lisp,  as  if  what  it  had  to  say  might 
only  be  comprehended  from  the  under  side. 

At  one  of  the  lowermost  curves  of  the  walk,  the 
width  of  a  brace  of  railroad  tracks  between,  a  coal 
dock  jutted  out  into  the  river.  Across  these  for 
bidden  tracks,  indeed,  as  if  they  did  not  exist,  Lilly 
wandered. 

At  the  last  inch  of  dock,  so  that  the  water  licked 
up  at  her  shoes,  Lilly  stood  poised.  Not,  it  is  true, 
with  the  diver's  blade  thrust  of  arms,  but  rather  the 
unskilled,  the  indeterminate  movement  of  one 
vaguely  prompted  from  the  unfathomable  places  of 
the  heart. 

It  was  upon  that  move  that  something,  a  terrifying 
restraint,  laid  hold  of  Lilly's  jangling  nerve  ends. 

' '  Hey  there !     None  o'  that  to-night ! ' ' 

A  dockman's  hand,  hairy  as  an  Airedale,  had  her 
by  the  arm,  and  somewhere  at  her  brow,  cooling  it, 
the  fine  hand  of  Bruce  Visigoth,  pressing  her  against 
him,  and  at  that  touch  Lilly's  hysteria  shot  up  like 
a  geyser. 

" Don't!"  she  screamed,  and  would  have  struggled 
for  the  edge  except  for  the  two  firm  hands  now 
pressing  her  arms  to  her  sides. 

"Lilly,  for  God's  sake,  get  hold  of  yourself!" 

"Let  me  go!    Let  me  go!" 

"Aw  no;  we  don't  leggo.  It's  a  good  stroke  we 
both  happened  to  spy  you  at  the  same  minute. 


366  STAR  DUST 

There's  nothin'  gives  strength  like  a  spell  of  the 
craziness.  You'd  'a'  jumped  me  alone,  sure!" 

"No!  No!  It  wasn't  that— God,  not  that!  Tell 
me,  Bruce,  it  wasn't — that." 

"  Of  course  it  wasn't,  Lilly." 

"That's  what  they  all  say  once  they  git  their 
senses  jerked  back.  Come  in  here  and  pull  yourself 
together,  girl,  or  I'll  call  an  ambulance  or  a  patrol, 
suiting  your  pleasure." 

"Let  me  go,  you!  I  won't  stand  it.  I  must 
have  been  mad!  Bruce,  you  tell  him,  please — it 
wasn't— that!" 

"You're  wrong,  old  man.  Here — take  this  for 
your  trouble,  but  this  young  woman  is  my  sister. 
We  walked  out  here  together." 

Quieted  suddenly  to  the  merest  timbre  of  insolence, 
the  old  man  shambled  off. 

"Sure!"  he  said,  far  too  knowingly.  "Sure!" 
And  faded  shaggily,  impudently  into  darkness. 

Bruce  Visigoth  took  Lilly  home  in  a  taxicab.  At 
her  door  she  broke  her  shamed  silence. 

"You  understand,  Bruce,  it  wasn't  anything — 
like  that.  It  must  have  been  nerves — tiredness — 
but  nothing,  Bruce,  that  you  think  it  was.  That  old 
man  was  wrong.  You  must  understand — for  her 
sake — it  wasn't  that." 

' '  Of  course  it  wasn't,  Lilly. '  *  His  voice  drained  off, 
as  if  from  exhaustion. 

But  for  years,  like  a  wound  whose  jagged  lips  were 
slow  to  close,  the  memory  of  this  night  lay  pal 
pitating  between  them. 


CHAPTER  V 

"HTHE  WEB"  was  tried  out  in  Baltimore  the 
1  following  April,  Zoe,  Ida  Blair,  and  Bruce 
Visigoth  traveling  down  on  the  same  train  with  the 
company.  It  cost  Lilly  a  pang  for  Zoe  to  miss  the 
two  days  of  school  and  a' vocal,  a  French,  and  a 
piano  lesson,  but  the  theater  attracted  Zoe  like  the 
blithesome  little  moth  she  was.  The  duties  of  her 
High  School  combined  with  the  unrelenting  tutelage 
of  Treiste  molded  her  young  days  pretty  rigidly  to 
form,  but  more  than  once,  during  the  rehearsals  of 
"The  Web,"  Lilly,  seated  in  the  black  maw  of  the 
auditorium,  would  turn  suddenly  to  the  feel  of  her 
daughter's  gaze  burning  like  sun  through  glass  into 
the  darkness.  The  company  adopted  her  as  a  pet. 
The  director  babied  her.  Once,  as  the  afternoon 
rehearsal  was  disbanding,  she  crept  up  through  a  box 
to  the  stage.  The  footlights  were  dark,  but  she  came 
down  quite  freely  toward  them,  seeming  to  feel  their 
mock  blaze,  and  sang  a  snatch  or  two  from  the 
tenderest  Lieder  ever  written,  bits  of  Schubert  and 
Hugo  Wolf,  the  company  gathering  in  the  wings  to 
listen  and  applaud. 

The  incident,  slight  as  it  was,  brought  the  scratch 
of  tears  to  Lilly's  eyes  and  the  pull  of  half  hysteria 
to  her  lips.  What  if,  after  all,  an  incredible  fulfill 
ment  was  gathering  about  her  like  a  vast  dawn? 
"O  God!  please!" 

And  so,  to  the  unending  delight  and  amusement  of 
Bruce,  Zoe  went  along  to  Baltimore,  Lilly  pinching 


368  STAR  DUST 

a  little  over  the  expense  and  pressing  out  ribbons 
and  girlish  accessories  up  to  the  last  minute. 

With  Ida  Blair,  who  had  sunk  back  against  years 
the  colorlessness  of  cold  dish  water,  herself  more 
colorless,  it  was  as  if  she  had  fired  her  one  and  only 
shot  and  run  retreating  behind  the  explosion. 

Already  her  name  had  been  linked  with  a  co-author 
on  programs  and  three-sheets,  because  a  collaborator, 
a  professional  mender  of  plays,  had  been  called  in  at 
the  last  moment  to  riddle  the  drama's  somber  story 
with  a  few  "laughs."  A  character  policeman,  a 
comedy  jury  foreman,  and  a  subplot  of  love  story 
between  the  character  policeman  and  an  Irish  cook 
had  been  "written  in."  The  last  act  entirely  re 
vised,  a  happy  ending  substituted,  and  the  theme  of 
the  story  extricated  like  a  jumping  nerve. 

It  was  the  heroic  treatment  administered  by 
experts  to  save  what  looked  like  unmistakable  demise 
after  the  first  Baltimore  performance,  and  all  the 
while  Ida  Blair  sat  mutely  by,  trying  to  probe 
through  the  actuality  of  her  play  or  what  was  left 
of  it,  actually  in  the  acting. 

"The  Steel  Trap,"  as  it  was  renamed,  played  to 
indifferent  reviews  and  receipts  the  remainder  of  the 
Baltimore  engagement,  and  lost  money  in  Washing 
ton,  but  to  the  director,  Bruce  Visigoth,  and  cer 
tainly  to  Lilly,  looked  a  potential  property. 

So  after  two  weeks  the  play  was  removed,  re 
vamped,  recast,  still  another  play  diagnostician  called 
in,  and  under  his  surgery  the  third  and  fourth 
acts  combined,  and  the  original  role  of  love  story 
made  to  predominate  what  sociological  note  the  play 
still  contained.  After  an  October  tryout  in  Stam 
ford  and  a  New  York  opening  of  still  doubtful  recep 
tion,  when  the  production  hung  between  life  and 


STAR  DUST  369 

death  and  all  the  well-known  exigencies  of  oxygen 
were  applied  in  the  form  of  "papering"  the  house 
with  two  weeks  of  free  tickets,  press-agenting,  et  al.t 
the  public  decided  to  like  it. 

"Who  Did  It?"  as  it  was  re-renamed,  settled 
down  to  a  run  of  forty-three  New  York  weeks,  and 
along  the  Rialto  the  source  of  its  authorship  leaked  out 
and  became  curbstone,  and  finally  newspaper,  patter. 

At  the  end  of  six  months  Ida  Blair  had  resigned 
her  bookkeepership,  erected  a  small  but  perfect 
plinth  of  blue  granite  in  a  certain  hillside  cemetery, 
purchased  a  story-and-a-half  bungalow  in  the  heart 
of  two  Long  Island  acres,  and  was  raising  leghorns 
and  educating  a  niece  by  marriage. 

For  the  forty-three  metropolitan  weeks,  not  to 
mention  stock,  foreign,  motion  pictures,  and  road 
incomes  that  were  to  accrue  later,  Lilly  was  receiving 
her  share,  never  less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  dollars  a  week  and  often  considerably  more. 

It  was  a  windfall  pure  and  simple.  The  years  of 
petty  pickering  suddenly  seemed  more  horrid  to  her  in 
retrospect  than  she  had  ever  realized  they  were  in  the 
living.  It  was  hateful  to  have  reckoned  in  car  fares 
and  to  so  often  have  appeared  to  do  the  niggardly 
thing  before  the  unspoken  reproach  of  her  child. 

That  same  winter  a  cashier's  note  with  her  weekly 
check  announced  a  thirty-three  and  a  third  per  cent 
advance -*  in  salary.  Life  had  suddenly  quickened 
its  tempo.  She  was  passing  through  one  of  those 
eras  when  events,  long  crouched,  seem  to  spring 
simultaneously. 

In  April,  1917,  the  United  States  declared  war 
against  Germany.  Daily  life,  even  to  the  indirectly 
touched,  took  on  a  new  throb.  Fourteen  men  em- 


370  STAR  DUST 

ployees  of  the  Amusement  Enterprise  Company 
enlisted  the  first  week.  A  service  flag  went  up. 
Bruce  Visigoth,  outside  the  draft  limit,  imme 
diately  enrolled  on  a  service  committee,  spending 
two  days  out  of  every  week  in  Washington.  Vaude 
ville  ranks  sagged  suddenly  and  for  a  brief  moment 
the  gray-haired  actor  came  back  into  his  own. 
Office  tension  tightened.  A  nervousness  set  in.  A 
telephone  ringing  could  set  Lilly's  nerves  to  quivering 
and  the  telephone  not  ringing  fill  her  with  a  nameless 
sort  of  anxiety. 

More  and  more,  too,  it  seemed  to  her,  with  the 
emotions  always  just  a  scratch  beneath  the  surface 
those  war  times,  that  the  agony  of  pretense  between 
her  and  Bruce  Visigoth  could  not  endure.  That 
he  had  applied  for  a  commission  in  active  service 
Lilly  knew,  but  merely  from  correspondence.  There 
had  been  no  talk  about  it.  She  awoke  nights,  heavy 
with  a  dread  she  could  not  name. 

Only  the  violent  conjuring  of  her  child  and  a 
vision  of  Albert  Penny  carried  her  rebellion  past 
these  bad  places.  Their  frequent  enforced  con 
ferences;  the  chance  touching  of  their  fingers,  only 
to  fly  too  instantly  apart;  the  impeccable  masks  of 
indifference  and  elaborate  casualness  of  manner ;  the 
forbidden  singing  through  her  entire  being  as  he 
walked  into  the  office  and  the  imperturbability  of 
the  manner  she  must  present  to  him.  To  contem 
plate  a  future  futile  with  such  dreary  repetition 
became  almost  more  than  she  could  bear,  and  bitter 
with  that  salt  were  the  lonely  tears  she  cried  at  night. 

Even  the  occasional  appearance  of  Robert  Visi 
goth  came  more  and  more  to  be  a  sort  of  biting  irri 
tant  to  a  gangrenous  spot  she  thought  long  since 
had  hardened. 


STAR  DUST  37i 

He  had  grown  enormously  fat  and  Rufus  G. 
Higginbothom,  dying,  had  enhanced  that  glutted 
look  by  bequeathing  to  his  only  daughter,  Hindle, 
without  stipulation,  a  leaf -lard  fortune  of  some 
seventeen  million  dollars. 

When  his  daughter,  Pauline,  was  thirteen,  he 
brought  her  to  New  York  on  one  of  his  frequent 
fliers,  parading  the  fat,  freckled,  and  frightened 
youngster  from  one  department  to  another. 

"How  much  do  you  think  she  weighs?"  he  was 
fond  of  interrogating,  with  his  small  parental  eyes 
full  of  pride.  "Hundred  and  thirty-six  for  thirteen 
years.  Not  bad,  eh?" 

With  about  the  sickest  sensation  she  was  ever  to 
know,  Lilly  saw  him  this  day  lead  his  daughter  past 
her  open  door,  his  face  averted  and  the  roll  of  fat 
at  the  back  of  his  neck  redly  conscious. 

It  was  after  this  incident  that  a  half  plan,  long 
dormant,  lifted  its  head.  Every  day  in  her  comings 
and  goings  through  the  wide  fireproof  corridors  of 
the  Forty-second  Street  building  a  sign  on  a  ground- 
glass  door  waved  at  her  like  a  flag: 


Miss  NELLIE  TERRY 
Playbroker 

Authors' 

Manuscripts 

Placed 


She  had  little  doubt  of  her  ability  to  launch  out 
into  a  scheme  of  this  sort  for  herself  and  liked  to 
incubate  the  idea  in  the  back  of  her  head,  going  so 
far  as  to  inspect  a  tiny  office  on  the  fifteenth  floor, 
mentally  furnishing  it  up,  and  visualizing  her  name 
in  neat  black  letters  on  her  own  ground-glass  door. 


372  STAR  DUST 

She  did  broach  the  subject  to  Zoe  one  evening,  who, 
with  her  head  wrapped  in  a  brilliant  fez  improvised 
out  of  an  old  cushion  top,  stood  before  the  mirror, 
attitudinizing  her  part  in  school  entertainment. 

"No!  Don't  go  into  anything  tin  horn  like  that! 
I  hate  for  you  to  keep  playing  second  fiddle ." 

In  the  pause  that  followed,  hardly  perceptible 
enough  to  hold  the  drop  of  a  pin,  Zoe  flashed  toward 
her  mother,  the  colossal  ego  of  her  youth  somehow 
penetrated  for  the  moment. 

"Why,  Lilly — I — I  mean —  You  know  what  I 
mean — " 

*  *  Of  course  I  know  what  you  mean,  dear.  Second 
fiddle!" 

And  so  what  with  Zoe's  growing  demands  and 
Lilly's  rooted  fear  of  any  jeopardy  to  them,  time 
marched  on  rather  imperceptibly,  except  that  Lilly 
thinned  and  whitened  a  bit,  slendering  down,  as  it 
were,  to  more  and  more  sisterly  proportions  as  her 
daughter  shot  up  to  meet  her.  They  were  shoulder 
to  shoulder  now,  if  the  truth  were  known,  Zoe  a  little 
in  the  preponderance. 

Meanwhile,  Zoe  was  growing  restive  of  the  somewhat 
irksome  limitations  of  the  Ninety-first  Street  apart 
ment.  She  complained  that  the  room  was  oppressive 
for  her  long  hours  of  study  and  practice.  Visits  to 
the  Daab  studio,  faithful  in  effect  to  a  Doge's  palace 
and  where  she  was  more  and  more  a  favorite, 
and  also  to  the  pretentious  homes  of  one  or  two 
school  companions,  had  an  upsetting  effect  upon  her. 
The  long,  gloomy  neck  of  hallway  depressed  her  and 
she  voiced  bitterly  a  secret  aversion  of  Lilly's  for  the 
single  bathroom  with  the  ugly  wooden  floor  and 
shallow  bathtub.  "Dump"  she  called  the  little  flat, 
her  brilliant  blue  gaze  blackening  up. 


STAR  DUST  373 

"I  can't  have  the  girls  and  boys  visit  me  in  this 
little  two-by-four,  dear.  It's  a  dump!" 

And  so  early  in  the  run  of  "Who  Did  It?"  the  little 
group  moved  again.  This  time  to  a  strictly  modern, 
pretentious  apartment  in  West  End  Avenue,  whose 
upper  apartments  boasted  a  river  view  and  three 
baths  and  rented  as  high  as  four  and  five  thousand 
dollars  a  year. 

For  twelve  hundred  Lilly  obtained  the  ground- 
floor  rear,  no  view,  but  five  fairly  large  rooms  and 
two  capacious  baths.  And  since  such  a  house  takes 
its  tone  from  its  highest-priced  tenants,  they  enjoyed 
with  them  the  uniformed  hall  service,  the  ornate 
entrance  de  luxe  and  foyer  de  trop. 

In  lieu  of  maid,  Harry  again  occupied  those 
quarters,  his  grandmother  sleeping  on  a  davenport 
in  the  sitting-dining-room.  There  were  no  roomers, 
Lilly  carrying  the  resultant  deficit. 

She  and  Zoe  again  shared  what  corresponded  to 
the  parlor,  this  time  a  fairly  large  room,  with  alcove 
curtained  off  for  sleeping  quarters.  They  furnished  it 
themselves,  quite  charmingly,  too,  and  with  a  con 
sensus  of  taste  except  where  Lilly  gave  way  to  Zoe's 
really  superior  intuition. 

There  were  plain  6cru  walls,  not  papered,  but,  at 
Zoe's  instance,  painted  and  roughened  up  with  a 
process  called  "stippling."  The  two-tone  brown  rug. 
An  overstuffed  couch  of  generous  proportions  and 
upholstered  in  a  nicely  woven  imitation  of  Flemish 
tapestry.  Along  the  back  of  this  piece,  which  occu 
pied  virtually  the  center  of  the  room,  was  a  long, 
narrow  table  the  exact  length  of  the  couch,  with  a 
pair  of  Italian  polychrome  candlesticks,  gift  of 
Gedney  Daab,  at  either  end. 

A  piece  of  old  red  brocade  hung  over  the  fireplace, 


374  STAR  DUST 

covering  the  ugly  mirror,  and  facing  it  a  brown-rep 
fireside  chair,  coarse  tan  fishnet  curtains,  a  pair  of 
huge  black- velvet  floor  cushions  with  orange-colored 
balls  in  each  center,  bespeaking  a  new  art  era  which 
was  dawning  as  colorfully  and  as  formlessly  as  a 
pricked  egg  yolk. 

An  upright  piano  was  stacked  with  music,  and,  in 
spite  of  Lilly's  argument  for  them,  no  pictures  on 
the  walls,  only  a  brilliant  panel  portrait  of  Zoe, 
signed  Gedney  Daab,  her  young  form  in  faint  profile 
against  a  background  of  cloth  of  gold,  the  face  up- 
flung  to  a  flow  of  sunlight  that  crossed  the  picture 
in  a  churchy  ray. 

"If  we  cannot  have  originals  or  etchings,  we  won't 
have  any.  I  hate  middle-classness." 

"But,  Zoe,  dear — a  few  good  prints.  'The  Age  of 
Innocence' — " 

She  kissed  her  mother  on  the  mouth  with  all  the 
outrageous  patronage  of  youth. 

"You're  a  darling,  Lilly,  but  they  just  aren't 
doing  it  that  way  any  more,  dear.*' 

So  there  were  no  pictures. 

At  the  time  of  this  move,  Harry  had  been  holding 
the  position  of  clerk  at  the  cigar,  magazine,  and  book 
concession  of  one  of  the  newest  and  noisiest  of 
Broadway's  terrific  commercial  hotels. 

The  hours  were  difficult,  from  noon  to  midnight, 
but  within  the  seventeen  months  he  had  advanced 
from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  dollars  a  week.  A  new, 
a  surprising  spruceness  had  laid  hold  of  him.  He 
took  to  exceedingly  tall  small  collars  and  vivid  neck 
wear,  his  suit  very  narrow  and  making  him  look 
less  than  ever  his  years. 

Mrs.  Schum,  too,  had  taken  on  some  of  that  well- 
being,  and,  though  she  complained  constantly  of  a 


STAR  DUST  375 

sciatic  twist  in  her  side,  something  had  lifted  from 
off  her.  Her  patter  about  the  house,  in  the  slippers 
with  the  rubber  insets,  was  lighter;  she  discarded  the 
old  jet-edged  dolman  with  the  humps  on  the  shoul 
ders  and  the  slits  for  the  arms,  for  a  decent  full- 
length  black  coat  with  a  stitched  braid  border  and 
self -covered  buttons,  gift  of  her  grandson.  There 
had  been  a  present  for  Lilly,  too,  a  light-blue,  drug 
store-purchased  celluloid  toilet  set. 

He  no  longer  sat  idle  in  his  room,  his  light  eyes 
futile  with  staring  at  space  or  his  head  down  tiredly 
in  his  hands.  Something  had  indeed  come  over 
Harry. 

"After  all,"  said  Lilly,  always  readily  buoyed, 
"the  operation  did  accomplish!" 

Sometimes,  since  his  mornings  were  free,  he  rode 
down  to  the  office  with  Lilly,  eagerly  insistent  to 
pay  her  car  fare  and  cram  a  return  Subway  ticket 
into  the  warm  pink  aperture  of  flesh  where  her  glove 
clasped. 

Once  he  bought  her  a  little  spray  of  heather  off  a 
vender's  tray. 

"Harry,  you  mustn't  spend  on  me  this  way.  You 
must  begin  to  save  your  money  for  that  right  girl 
when  she  comes  along." 

Never  quick  with  retort,  he  stood  watching  her 
dart  into  the  foyer  of  the  Forty-second  Street  build 
ing,  a  sudden  silence  shaping  around  him  that  had 
in  it  the  little  noises  of  birds  singing.  "Right  girl," 
he  kept  repeating  after  her,  or  something  like  that, 
and  remained  there  loitering  for  twenty  minutes 
after  her  presence  had  fluttered  through  the  revolving 
doors  and  into  the  elevator. 

And  then  suddenly  a  quick  succession  of  events 
set  in. 


376  STAR  DUST 

One  night  Lilly  and  Zoe,  returning  from  a  Boston 
Symphony  concert  for  which  they  held  first-balcony 
season  seats,  found  Harry  trying  to  pour  brandy 
between  the  clenched  lips  of  Mrs.  Schum,  who  lay 
rigid  on  the  hall  floor  where  she  had  fallen,  her  head 
bleeding  from  a  sharp  contact  with  the  door. 

Her  poor  face  with  the  shriveled  bags  of  flesh 
seemed  suddenly  shrunk,  and,  holding  the  flask 
against  her  teeth,  Harry's  hands  were  trembling  so 
that  the  liquid  poured  in  a  thin  stream  off  the  edge 
of  her  mouth. 

After  half  an  hour  of  desperate  and  unavailing  use 
of  home  remedies,  Lilly  sent  for  a  doctor,  one  in  the 
building,  who  came  down  in  dinner  clothes. 

At  twelve  o'clock  that  night  Mrs.  Schum,  without 
regaining  consciousness,  was  rushed  to  the  Saint 
Genevieve  Hospital  in  East  Seventy-eighth  Street, 
for  an  emergency  operation  that  had  to  do  with  a 
growth  in  her  side. 

It  was  Lilly's  first  contact  with  the  casualty  of 
sudden  illness.  In  the  little  anteroom  of  the  hos 
pital,  her  hand  in  Harry's,  she  sat  the  remainder  of 
the  night  through.  He  was  constantly  wiping  away 
the  tears  from  his  light  eyes  and  looking  away  to 
gulp.  She  reassured  him  where  she  could,  tightening 
her  hold  of  his  hand. 

''Don't— let  them  hurt  her." 

"They  aren't  hurting  her,  Harry  dear.  She  can't 
feel  at  all  under  the  anaesthetic." 

"But  they  won't  know.  Gramaw  won't  let  them 
know.  Tell  them,  Lilly,  she's  that  way — not  to  hurt 
her — please." 

"Harry— dear!" 

At  dawn  milk  wagons  began  to  clatter  through 
streets  no  grayer  than  Harry's  face.  But  at  six 


STAR  DUST  377 

o'clock  Mrs.  Schum  was  reported  "as  well  as  could 
be  expected"  and  the  operation  apparently  a 
success. 

They  rode  home  through  the  early  morning,  Lilly 
insisting  upon  a  taxicab  and  Harry  lying  back,  quite 
frankly  spent,  against  her  arm.  Her  vitality  was 
unquenchable,  mounted,  in  fact,  under  stress.  Un- 
tired,  she  brewed  him  hot  coffee,  forced  him  to  drink 
it  and  lie  down;  tidied  up  the  little  flat  there  at 
six-thirty  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  a  hit-and-a- 
miss  it  is  true,  but  allaying  all  signs  of  confusion; 
fluted  an  Eton  collar  for  Zoe  and  packed  her  off  to 
school;  and  at  half  after  eight,  just  out  of  a  cold  and 
invigorating  shower,  was  combing  out  the  fine  electric 
rush  of  her  hair,  a  pink  Turkish  bathrobe,  the  color 
of  her  firm,  cool  skin,  wrapped  tightly  about  her  and 
caught  in  by  a  cord  at  her  waist  line. 

Suddenly  through  the  mirror  she  saw  the  door 
open,  and  before  she  could  call  out,  Harry  stood  in 
the  center  of  the  room,  his  eyes  running  quite 
unmistakably  over  the  contour  of  her  sheathed  body. 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  violated  the 
slightest  nicety,  and,  outraged  even  in  her  pity  for 
him,  her  hand  flew  up,  drawing  the  robe  closer  at  her 
breast. 

"Don't  come  in!"  she  cried,  retreating  up  against 
the  dresser  and  turning  her  shoulder  with  the  hair 
flowing  over  it  toward  him.  "How  dared  you  come 
in  here  without  knocking!  Go!" 

He  was  crying,  not  seeming  to  know  it,  because  he 
continued,  even  as  she  stood  blazing  at  him,  to  stand 
staring  through  the  rain  of  tears. 

"Harry,  you're  forgetting  yourself.  You  mustn't 
give  way.  Your  grandmother  is  over  the  worst 
now — ' ' 


378  STAR   DUST 

Suddenly  he  was  on  his  knees,  his  back  round  and 
shaken  with  sobs. 

"Lilly— Lilly—can't  you  see?'1 

"See  what?  Is  anything  wrong?  Harry,"  she 
cried,  stooping  to  shake  him  by  the  shoulder,  "has 
anything  happened  again?  Are  you  in  trouble?" 

He  would  not  rise,  following  her,  to  her  horror,  by 
walking  on  his  knees,  pressing  and  pressing  the  hem 
of  her  garments,  and  before  she  realized  it  burning 
his  kisses  down  into  it.  She  fought  him  off,  tearing 
from  his  grasp  and  staggering  back  against  the  wall. 

"Harry — you're  in  trouble  again." 

He  caught  her  bare  arm,  pressing  his  lips  into  the 
yielding  flesh. 

"Lilly,  I  can't  hold  back  any  longer.  I  love  you. 
I'm  all  alone.  With  grama w  here  I  could  hold  back 
— somehow — but  now — Lilly — Lilly — I  love  you." 

She  could  only  stare,  her  mouth  fallen  open  and 
the  rim  of  her  eyes  their  widest. 

"It's  been  so  long  to — hold  back — so  long.  Since 
that  first  day  at  the  street  car — you  kissed  me — and 
now  with  gramaw  gone — Lilly — " 

She  jerked  him  up  from  his  knees  this  time,  holding 
him  firmly,  even  absurdly,  by  the  coat  lapels,  shaking 
him. 

"Harry,  you've  gone  mad!" 

"I  love  you,  Lilly.  All  these  years.  I'm  all  alone 
now  and — " 

Her  glance  shot  to  the  egress  of  the  door,  but, 
seeing  that  he  anticipated  her,  she  did  not  dart,  but 
held  herself  back  from  him,  her  hands  in  an  X 
across  her  breast. 

"Harry,"  she  said,  trying  to  keep  out  of  her  voice 
a  rising  sense  of  fear,  "you're  not  well.  You  don't 
know  what  you  are  saying  or  doing." 


STAR  DUST  379 

"  You  treat  me  like  a  child,  but  I'm  a  man.  Your 
age!  You  hear — a  man  with  a  man's  feelings  for  a 
woman — for  you — Lilly.  You're  my — be  my — " 

"You  get  out,"  she  cried,  her  terror  bursting  out 
like  a  flame.  "Get  out  or  I'll  call  Mr.  Alquist." 

She  referred  to  the  superintendent  of  the  apart 
ment  building,  although  she  knew  him  to  be  well  out 
of  hearing.  It  is  probable  that  Harry  knew,  too,  be 
cause  he  had  her  by  the  elbows,  pressing  them  in 
against  her  body  and  her  hair  flowing  across  his  face. 

"Lilly,  Lilly,  Lilly!"  he  kept  repeating,  breathing 
so  heavily  it  sickened  her  to  hear  and  feel  it,  and  all 
the  time  fumbling  with  his  free  hand  down  into  his 
waistcoat  pocket,  bringing  up  a  bit  of  tissue  paper 
which  he  tore  at  with  his  teeth,  revealing  the  icy 
flash  of  a  great  oval  diamond  ring  set  up  high  in 
platinum.  "It's  yours,  Lilly.  I  want  to  cover  you 
with  them.  I  want  you  to  blaze  with  them — " 

He  pressed  it  on  her  finger,  pushing  it  down  the 
entire  length,  danced  her  hand  before  her,  catching 
her  to  him  finally  and  crushing  her  and  the  flow  of 
her  hair  to  him,  kissing  so  fiercely  down  that  red 
marks  came  out  against  her  whiteness,  and  when  her 
cry  finally  rose  to  a  shriek  let  go  of  her,  staggering 
back,  his  face,  never  quite  clean  of  pimples,  suddenly 
fat-looking  and  with  a  lionlike  thickening  up  of  the 
features. 

'  '  Ah — y  ah — y  ah — y  ah — y  ah ! ' ' 

His  incoherence  was  horrible  and  she  began  to  sob 
at  him  through  hysteria. 

"You  go!  You  get  out!  You  stole  that  ring! 
You're  a  thief!  You  stole  that  ring!"  she  cried, 
thrusting  it  with  a  sudden  quick  hand  down  the  V 
of  his  waistcoat.  "Get  out!  Get  out!  Your  grand 
mother — your — "  Then,  because  words  failed  and 

25 


38o  STAR  DUST 

her  knees  threatened  to  give  way,  she  snatched  up  a 
book  from  the  table,  standing  quivering  and  in  the 
attitude  of  hurling. 

He  did  go  then,  as  if  the  book  had  actually  struck, 
making  a  detour  of  her  and  his  knees  quite  bent  as 
he  walked. 

She  finished  her  dressing  in  quick,  fuddled  move 
ments,  voice  out  in  her  breathing,  buttoning  up 
wrong  and  tearing  open  again  in  the  grip  of  a  nervous 
frenzy. 

A  panicky  need  to  gain  the  outdoors  seized  her; 
air  to  sweep  and  somehow  to  cleanse  her. 

Before  she  was  quite  dressed,  her  belt  not  yet 
adjusted,  in  fact,  the  bell  rang  in  three  titters  and  a 
prolonged  grill.  She  stood  arrested,  for  some  reason 
beginning  all  over  her  trembling.  When  Harry  did 
not  answer  she  went  out  herself,  opening  the  door  to 
a  mere  slit.  A  foot  was  pushed  immediately  in, 
crowding  her  back  against  the  wall.  Two  men 
walked  in,  without  removing  derby  hats,  and  at 
sight  of  them  the  nameless  terror  pinned  her  there  in 
silence. 

"Harry  Calvert  live  here?" 

She  stood  with  her  answer  locked  in  her  throat, 
conscious,  on  the  moment,  of  Harry  appearing  in 
the  kitchen  doorway  behind  her.  She  wanted,  for 
the  same  nameless  reason,  to  motion  him  back,  to 
shriek  out  a  warning,  to  throw  herself  against  his 
presence.  To  herself  in  quick  repetitions: 

" O  God,  make  him  go  back!" 

"Harry  Calvert?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Harry  from  where  he  stood. 

"Warrant  for  your  arrest.  Charged  with  entering 
the  apartment  of  Mrs.  J.  King  at  Hotel  Admiral 
and  stealing  one  four-carat  diamond  ring  valued  at 


STAR  DUST  381 

five  thousand  dollars.    More  evidence  than  we  know 
what  to  do  with.    You  better  come  quietly." 

" Harry,  deny  it!  They've  made  a  mistake!  You 
haven't  the  right  to  come  here  at  a  time  like  this. 
There  is  sickness.  His  grandmother  is  dying  at  a 
hospital.  You've  made  a  mistake.  Take  me.  I'll 
appear  for  him.  I'll  give  his  bail.  All  you  want. 
Deny  it,  Harry.  Harry ! ' ' 

For  answer  a  sharp  explosion  rang  suddenly  into 
the  narrow  hallway,  banging  and  reverberating 
against  the  walls,  crowding  faces  out  behind  an  im 
mediate  purplish  smoke. 

"Harry!    Harry!    My  God!  Harry!" 
He  crumpled  up  quietly,  one  shoulder  in  the  lead 
and  his  left  leg  bending  under  him,  straightening  out 
then,  with  half  a  writhe  to  his  back. 

"No!    No!  Help  him!    God!    No!    No!    No!" 
But  yes.    Harry  had  shot  himself,  very  truly,  too,, 
through  the  heart. 


CHAPTER  VI 

'"THERE  followed  black  weeks,  with  Mrs.  Schum 
A    lying  there  on  the  edge  of  death,  yet  reluctant 
to  go,  Lilly's  days  an  intricate  pattern  of  hospital, 
office,  and  home. 

She  was  more  tired  than  she  knew  and  for  days 
after  the  tragedy  went  about  with  a  springy  little 
sob  just  behind  her  throat,  which  was  perpetually 
taut  from  holding  back  tears. 

The  effect  upon  Zoe  was  telling.  She  whose  solici 
tude  for  her  mother  had  never  been  any  too  note 
worthy  and  who  with  all  the  unthinking  blitheness 
of  an  unthinking  childhood  had  taken  much  for 
granted,  developed,  suddenly,  a  new  consciousness. 

She  would  literally  drag  Lilly  away  from  the  press 
ing  board. 

' '  Don't,  Lilly.  I'm  old  enough  to  iron  out  my  own 
ribbons. "  Or:  "Don't  polish  my  shoes,  Lilly.  It's 
outrageous!" 

"But,  Zoe,  I  would  rather  you  put  the  time  on 
practicing  or  reading." 

"I  can  do  both." 

One  Saturday  morning  she  was  even  awakened  to 
an  aroma  of  coffee,  her  daughter  standing  attendant 
at  the  bedside  with  a  tray  of  steaming  breakfast. 

' '  Stay  in  bed  this  morning,  Lilly.  You  look  fagged. 
Let  me  take  a  message  down  to  Visi  for  you.  Oh, 
Lilly,  do!  I'll  wear  my  new  red  tarn." 

"Nonsense!  I'm  going  down  as  usual." 

"But,  Lilly,  I  want  him  to  see  me  in  it." 


STAR  DUST  383 

Probably  Lilly  regarded  her  daughter  a  second 
longer  than  the  occasion  warranted,  because  Zoe 
broke  away  from  the  gaze  somewhat  redly.  . 

"Faugh!  I  hate  him.  He  reminds  me  of  a  wild 
horse.  But  I'll  show  him  some  day  that  I'm  on  earth. 
I'm  as  full  of  my  own  ideals  as  he  is  of  his." 

"Of  course  you  are,  dear;  but  why  so  angry?" 

"I'm  not." 

Then  Lilly  rose,  smiling  as  she  dressed. 

The  household  was  not  easy  of  readjustment  until 
finally  were  procured  the  services  of  one  of  the  char 
women  from  the  Bronx  Theater,  who  prepared  the 
meals  and  could  flute  Zoe's  collars  to  the  utmost 
delicacy. 

At  this  time  Zoe  was  an  advanced  junior  in  High 
School,  president  of  her  class,  although  the  hawklike 
tutelage  of  Cleof ant  Trieste  had  delayed  graduation 
for  a  year,  slowing  down  her  curriculum  to  meet  his 
demands  of  harmony,  languages,  rhythmic  dancing, 
and  sports.  She  had  a  long,  sure  swimming  stroke 
that  could  carry  her  again  her  length,  rode  with  the 
fine  fluid  movement  of  a  young  body  at  one  with 
her  mount,  and  because  of  her  five  hours  a  week  at 
gymnasium  excelled  in  the  rather  uncommon  sport 
of  handball. 

She  no  longer  wore  her  hair  in  its  great  avalanche 
of  curls  down  her  back;  they  were  caught  in  now 
with  an  amber  barrette.  Nights  Lilly  loved  to  brush 
them  out  until  they  flared  to  a  dust  of  gold  about 
her  head.  There  was  no  light  too  dull  for  this  hair 
to  catch.  It  sprang  out  in  radiance  against  any 
background. 

"When  you  sing  Marguerite,  Zoe,  you  won't  need 
a  wig." 

"Ah,  but  when  I  sing  Electra — Thais — the  real 


384  STAR  DUST 

me — no  namby-pamby  Marguerite — no  pearls — 
that's  how  I  feel  about  Thai's — as  if  she  were  a  great 
opal  full  of  fire.  Hair,"  flopping  her  head  back 
ward  with  a  bounce  of  curls,  "is  hot — it  restricts. 
These  curls — they  are  all  hot  and  crawly  around  my 
neck,  holding  me." 

4  4  Poor  Harry !  You  remember  how  he  used  to  love 
to  take  you  out  walking  to  show  off  your  curls?" 

"Lilly,  is  Mrs.  Schum  going  to  get  well?" 

"I  don't  know.  It  frightens  me.  I  cannot  bear 
to  look  ahead  for  her,  poor  dear." 

"If  she  gets  well  she'll  have  to  know,  won't  she, 
that  Harry  didn't  go  to  war?" 

"Yes,  and  somehow — I  couldn't  stand  her  knowing 
that." 

"She'll  know  it  some  day,  anyhow." 

"Yes,  but  then  maybe  where  it  will  be  easier  for 
her  to  understand." 

On  her  own  responsibility  Lilly  had  employed  this 
subterfuge  with  Mrs.  Schum.  Slowly  as  she  came 
clutching  back  at  consciousness,  the  name  of  her 
grandson  more  and  more  on  her  twisted  lips,  Lilly 
whispered  it  down  to  her,  closing  her  hand  over  the 
tired  old  bony  one. 

"Listen,  dear  Mrs.  Schum,  I've — news  for  you." 

"They're  all  against  him—" 

"No,  no,  dear.  While  you've  been  so  ill,  what  we 
had  hoped  for  has  happened.  Harry's  been  accepted, 
dear — he's  enlisted." 

She  crinkled  her  brow,  trying  to  understand. 

"They  wouldn't  take  him.  He  wanted  to  fight  for 
his  country.  They  were  all  against  him — " 

"No,  no,  dear.  It's  all  different  now.  Since  our 
country  is  at  war  Harry  has  been  accepted.  The 
boys  were  rushed  overnight  to  training  camp.  Thou- 


STAR  DUST  385 

sands  of  them.  He  came  weeks  ago  to  tell  you  good- 
by,  but  you  were  too  ill  to  know.  He's  on  a  transport 
now,  dear,  sailing  to  fight  for  his  country.  Aren't 
you  proud?  Aren't  we  all  proud?" 

The  poor  hands  began  to  tremble,  feeling  their  way 
up  along  Lilly's  arm. 

"Harry's  gone — to  war?" 

"Y-yes— dear." 

She  seemed  to  speak  then,  through  a  pale  trans 
parent  sleep,  into  which  a  new  contentment  pressed 
lightly. 

"Harry's  gone.  Annie,  he's  a  soldier.  He's  so 
gentle  with  me,  Annie,  a  meek  child,  like  you  were. 
Never  any  back  talk  or  a  harsh  word.  Whatever 
wrong  he  did  was  forced  on  him  by  those  working 
against  him.  They  were  all  against  him.  His 
Mamma-Annie  knows.  She  bore  him  and  I  raised 
him.  Fight,  Harry!  The  streak  from  your  father 
can't  keep  you  down.  Show  them,  Harry,  show 
them.  Whatever  wrong  my  boy  did  was  forced  on 
him  by  those  working  against  him — " 

"That's  all  past  now,  dear." 

"He  liked  you,  Lilly.  He'd  have  gone  through 
fire  for  you.  You  were  always  good  to  my  soldier 
boy.  I  was  forever  finding  old  bits  of  things  that  you 
had  thrown  away  among  his  belongings.  Don't  tell 
him  I  told  you.  Old  pencils  and  old  gloves.  He 
was  a  great  one  for  gathering  up  things  for  keepsakes 
after  you  had  thrown  them  away.  Gloves — found 
some  old  ones  of  yours  under  his  pillow  one  morning. 
Not  taking  things,  you  understand,  but  just  pulled 
out  of  the  rubbish  heap  for  remembrance." 

"I  do  understand,  dear." 

And  so  the  weeks  of  her  illness  and  of  Lilly's  de 
ception  dragged  on. 


386  STAR  DUST 

There  were  holes  in  the  fabric  of  the  story,  obvious 
to  any  but  Mrs.  Schum's  tired  consciousness,  and  a 
too  sudden  inquiry  could  throw  Lilly  off  her  guard, 
but  there  was  a  flag  with  one  shining  service  star 
glowing  above  the  narrow  bed,  and  evenings  straight 
from  the  office  Lilly  would  hasten  to  the  hospital 
with  fruits  that  could  only  be  looked  at,  and  news 
papers  to  be  unfurled  and  read. 

"Is  his  name  in  the  papers  yet?" 

"Not  yet." 

"Why?" 

' '  I —  You  see,  dear,  the  transport  has  just  reached 
the  other  side." 

"My  boy  will  show  them — " 

The  kindly  spirit  of  the  deception  had  fallen  over 
the  entire  corridor.  A  maternity  case  in  the  room 
adjoining  sent  in  a  silk  flag  with  hand-embroidered 
stars.  The  head  nurse,  herself  on  the  eve  of  sailing 
for  service,  had  shopped  the  flag  with  the  one  bright 
star.  The  doctor,  fathering  the  lie,  called  her  "cap 
tain"  and  saluted  her  upon  entering  the  room  with 
a  flash  of  palm  and  a  click  of  heels. 

She  could  smile  at  this,  but  with  lips  as  blue  and 
shriveled  as  drowned  flesh. 

One  night  after  she  had  dozed  off  and  wandered 
into  some  phantasmagoria  where  she  seemed  to  fancy 
herself  seated  in  the  bow  of  a  boat  with  her  daughter, 
she  opened  her  eyes  suddenly,  reaching  out  for 
Lilly's  hand. 

"Lilly,  your  poor  mother.  Do  you  ever  think  of 
her?" 

"Yes,  yes,  I  do,  dear." 

"You  remember,  Lilly,  how  she  used  to  rush  down 
right  from  the  breakfast  table  to  the  bargain  bins 
for  those  pink  and  blue  mill-ends  she  used  to  dress 


STAR  DUST  387 

you  so  pretty  in.  My !  wasn't  she  one  for  Valen 
ciennes  lace,  though !  Wouldn't  she  just  dress  Zoe  up, 
though—" 

"Wouldn't  she!" 

"She  was  a  good  woman  in  her  way,  Lilly,  even 
with  all  her  fussing  and  nagging.  My!  how  she  did 
used  to  nag !  I  understood  her.  The  ketchup.  She 
was  a  great  one  for  condiments  and  would  have 
them  all  over  the  other  boarders.  Ketchup  and  the 
best  cut  of  the  meat  for  you  and  your  father.  There 
was  just  no  pleasing  her.  But  I  understood  her — 
she's  a  good  woman,  Lilly." 

"Indeed,  mamma  is  good!" 

"It's  not  that  I  don't  glory  in  you,  Lilly,  and  your 
having  a  wonder  child.  You  know  I've  always 
gloried  in  you.  You've  a  head  on  you  I  always  say 
that's  going  to  carry  you  beyond  us  all,  but  don't  you 
ever  feel,  Lilly,  that  maybe  your  doings  have  been 
wayward?" 

"I  do.    I  do." 

"Your  mother.  Your  father,  as  patient  and  as 
fine  a  man  as  breathed.  Your  husband,  I  don't  know 
him,  but  life  is  so  short.  So  terribly  short.  So  full  of 
pain  and  regrets  for  what  can't  be  undone.  That's 
why  I  cannot  go  and  leave  my  boy  behind — to  suffer 
alone.  I  want  him  to  go  first.  He's  not  strong. 
What  is  life,  except  doing  for  those  we  love?  Don't 
you  ever  feel  that  about  them  out  there,  Lilly?  Life 
is  so  short — such  a  struggle — alone — " 

"Dear  Mrs.  Schum,  you — you — you're  right." 

"Ah,  I  know — the  young  man  in  the  box  with  you 
at  'The  Web'  that  night  it  opened.  Your  boss.  I 
know!  He  likes  you,  that  young  man  does,  Lilly. 
It's  easy  to  see  it  in  his  eyes  for  you.  That's  why  it's 
dangerous.  Harry  likes  you,  too — but  not  that  way, 


388  STAR  DUST 

I  think.  He  saves  your  old  gloves.  That's  always 
struck  me  as  funny.  They're  all  against  him.  The 
fire  escapes;  that's  why  I  lock  the  doors.  You  hear 
— the  fire  escapes.  Poor  Lilly !  just  a  little  too  much 
ambition  and  not  quite  enough  talent  to  reach.  I 
used  to  predict  for  you  all  the  things  that  are  crop 
ping  out  in  your  child.  Zoe  is  to  be  the  one,  Lilly. 
Not  you  —  or  Harry  —  or  Mamma- Annie  —  Zoe  I 
Funny  his  saving  your  gloves — " 

These  were  the  times  that  Lilly  would  sit  there 
crying,  old  musty  memories  rising  around  her  like 
kicked-up  dust.  There  were  whole  evenings  when  her 
mother's  name  was  constantly  on  the  not  always 
coherent  lips,  and  to  Lilly  the  old  sense  of  the  un 
reality  of  her  universe,  or  was  it  herself,  laid  some 
what,  by  the  busy  years,  would  come  surging  again. 
Where  were  the  visions  for  which  she  had  climbed, 
spike-shod,  up  that  loving  wall  of  living  flesh  back 
there?  How  long  since  her  last  dream  of  self  had 
vanished?  Zoe  was  her  answer. 

One  evening  when  Lilly  arrived  home  from  the 
hospital  she  found  Zoe  squatting  in  bed,  her  face 
naughtily  screwed  into  a  little  grimalkin  knot,  elbows 
pressed  into  her  sides,  palms  up,  and  all  attitudinized 
to  emulate  a  Chinese  god.  Holding  this  pose  for  a  full 
minute  after  Lilly  had  entered  the  room,  she  began 
to  bounce  in  hilarity  up  and  down  on  the  mattress, 
probably  to  allay  her  own  sense  of  inner  unease. 

For  the  full  round  of  the  minute  Lilly  stared,  her 
glance  widening  and  darkening.  Something  had  hap 
pened  to  Zoe.  Something  horrid. 

"Don't  you  love  it,  Lilly?  Don't  stand  there  like 
you're  frozen.  Everybody  loves  it.  All  the  models 
down  at  Daab's  are  wearing  it  this  way.  Thais  does. 
Jeanne  d'Arc  does.  Don't  look  at  me  that  way." 


STAR  DUST  389 

Zoe  had  bobbed  her  hair.  It  hung  quite  straight, 
and  in  an  outstanding  shock,  because  of  its  thickness, 
just  below  her  ears.  Franz  Hals  would  have  loved 
the  rectilinear  contour  of  her.  She  was  saucy.  She 
was  abbreviated.  She  was  naughty ;  and  liked  to  flop 
her  head  about  for  the  soft  throw  of  her  hair. 

Her  mother  dropped  rather  than  sat  on  a  chair 
edge,  trying  to  keep  down  the  storm  of  anger  that 
had  her  by  the  throat  and  eyeballs. 

"Your  curls!  All  gone!  Your  beautiful  hair! 
What  have  you  done?  You  wicked  girl!  You — 
wicked — girl — you ! " 

It  was  the  first  time  in  all  the  largesse  of  her  youth 
that  such  a  tone  had  assailed  Zoe.  The  very  seven- 
teenness  of  her  revolted;  she  dropped  her  attitude. 

"Why,  Lilly — you — you're  talking  like  other — 
mothers." 

But  the  spank  in  Lilly's  hand  was  suddenly  singing 
against  her  palm  and  there  was  a  rush  of  her  not  so 
forbearing  forefathers  to  the  very  front. 

"You  horrid  girl!  How  dared  you?  Don't  come 
near  me!  Your  beautiful  hair  that  I've  never  been 
too  tired  to  brush  for  hours !  To  have  realized  those 
gorgeous  curls  in  you  and  for — for  this !  You  horrid, 
selfish  girl — selfish — selfish!" 

All  during  this,  her  naughtiness  fallen  from  her 
like  a  cloak,  Zoe  sat  regarding  her  parent,  her  lower 
lip  less  and  less  steady.  She  might  have  been 
stunned,  trying  to  keep  her  equilibrium  by  a  series 
of  rapid  little  blinks,  Lilly  meanwhile  sunk  into  a 
heap  and  crying  down  into  her  hands. 

1 '  Lilly— dearest— darling— est—' ' 

"Don't  talk  to  me." 

"But,  Lilly — you — you've  always  wanted  me  to  be 
true  to  myself." 


390  STAR  DUST 

"  You're  not  true  to  yourself.  You're  true  to  a 
pose,  a  silly  fad  that  you've  picked  up  around  the 
Daab  studio." 

"You  always  said  if  I  wanted  to  be  a  circus  rider 
I  could,  just  so  I  was  better  than  all  the  other  circus 
riders.  Well,  I  wanted  to  have  my  hair  bobbed  and 
I  bobbed  it  bobbiest." 

"Your  comparison  is  stupid.  You  know  it  is. 
You've  never  taken  a  step  before  without  talking  it 
over  with  me.  You  know  perfectly  well  I  should 
not  have  interfered.  I  should  have  tried  to  make  you 
see  the  folly  of  cutting  off  your  beautiful  curls,  but 
if  you  had  still  insisted,  off  they  might  have  come 
just  the  same.  I  think  it  is  that  as  much  as  the  loss 
of  the  curls.  Your  privilege  has  become  a  license. 
You've  made  everything  seem  ridiculous — me — 
you." 

"Then  you've  made  me  so.  If  you  want  me  to  be 
like  other  girls  you  should  have  reared  me  like  other 
girls.  Have  other  girls'  fathers  who  don't  know  they 
are  on  earth?  Have  other  girls'  mothers  who — " 

"Zoe!" 

As  if  the  words  had  been  live  coals  scuttling  off  her 
lips  before  she  knew,  Zoe  sat  back,  staring  at  her 
mother's  stare,  scalding  tears  already  welling. 

"Lilly,  forgive  me.  I — I  wish  I  could  cut  my 
tongue  out.  I  didn't  mean  it  that  way;  you  know  I 
didn't.  If  you  don't  forgive  me  I  can't  stand  it," 
the  stabbing  consciousness  of  that  impulsively  flung 
reproach  already  through  her  like  a  hurting  wound. 

"You  are  right,  Zoe,  I—" 

"I  didn't  mean  one  word,  Lilly  darling,  not  one 
eeny  word.  It's  just  that  all  of  a  sudden  it  seemed 
to  me  to  be  the  freest,  gladdest  thing  in  the  world  to 
cut  off  my  hair.  That's  it,  free!  Haven't  you  ever 


STAR  DUST  391 

had  that  feeling,  darling?  Free!  I  wouldn't  have 
done  it,  Lilly,  if  I  had  known  how  it  would  hurt.  Lilly 
— darling — mother.  If  I've  hurt  you  I  want  to  just 
die.  My  own  dear — Lilly — " 

Her  voice  caught  on  the  crest  of  a  sob  and  she 
was  at  her  mother's  feet,  seeking  out  her  lap,  tears 
rushing  down  over  her  incoherence. 

"I'll  grow  it  back  again  for  you,  Lilly.  I'll  make 
it  up  to  you,  sweetheart.  I  didn't  mean  that — what 
I  said  about  fathers  or — or  other  girls — you  know  I 
didn't.  I'm  bad.  Terrible." 

In  some  alarm,  Lilly  placed  her  hand  on  the  shorn 
head,  shuddering  in  spite  of  herself  as  if  the  ends 
were  bleeding. 

"Sh-h-h,  Zoe!  It  upset  me,  dear,  that's  all — the 
shock  of  seeing  you  sitting  up  in  bed  there — with  it 
off." 

"I'll  make  it  up  to  you,  Lilly.  In  so  many  ways. 
Soon.  It's  settled,  dear,  that  Auchinloss  is  coming 
to  America  in  the  fall  to  conduct.  Trieste  is  going 
to  arrange  my  audition  for  September.  He  promised 
to-day  I'd  be  ready.  Think,  Lilly,  my  audition  so 
soon.  I'll  have  the  wig  made  out  of  my  own  hair, 
dear,  for  Marguerite.  Don't  feel  badly,  Lilly;  the 
wig  will  look — " 

"I  don't  any  more,  Zoe.    It  was  just  the  shock — " 

"I  know  it  was  silly,  dear,  but  it  will  grow  quickly 
and  I  just  had  that  feeling  to  be  free — you  see, 
dear—" 

"I  do  see,  dear,  I  do.  Zoe,  look  at  me.  Doesn't 
it  ever  come  over  you,  on  the  eve  of  so  much,  dear 
— that  perhaps  you  do  need  his — your  father's 
guardianship — " 

"Now  just  because  I  said  that.  I  tell  you  I'm  a 
devil.  I  didn't  mean  it — not  one  word — " 


392  STAR  DUST 

'  *  I  know  you  didn't.  It  cropped  out  unconsciously. 
You're  not  to  blame.  He's  a  good  man,  Zoe,  your 
father,  and  his  steady  hand  might  do  much  where  I 
— may  have  failed." 

"If  you  talk  that  way  I  can't  stand  it.  You  tell 
me  so  often  he's  a  good  man,  I  wonder  if  he  really 
is—" 

"You're  getting  beyond  me,  Zoe.  I  wonder  if  the 
day  isn't  inevitable  when  you  are  going  to  break 
out  more  and  more  into  unconscious  reproach." 

"Lilly— no— no— " 

"Oh,  I  don't  only  mean  what  you  said  just  now. 
But  it's  on  my  mind  more  and  more,  now  that  you  are 
old  enough  to  decide  for  yourself.  You  cannot  be 
sucked  back  any  more  into  a  life  you  would  not 
tolerate.  You  can  choose.  That  is  what  I  have 
been  waiting  for.  Doesn't  the  ache  ever  come  over 
you,  Zoe,  to  see  your  father?  Just  a  natural  in 
stinctive  ache,  if  nothing  else — your  grandparents — " 

"No!  No!  No!  I  hate  it  all  as  you  hated  it. 
If  you  want  to  punish  me  terribly — for  saying 
something  I  didn't  mean — just  talk  them  to  me.  I 
want  wideness,  must  have  it!  Room!  I — I  could 
say  it  in  music  better  than  in  words.  Some  day  I 
shall  compose  a  song  that  says  it  for  me — the — the 
way  I  feel  it.  Don't  stop  now  saving  me  from  them. 
Wait.  Wait,  Lilly,  until  I  sing.  Trieste  under 
stands  even  better  than  you.  I'm  the  surprise  he 
keeps  hinting  about  to  everyone.  I'm  going  to 
bowl  them  over  at  my  audition.  Lilly — have  I  ever 
failed  you?  Have  I  ever  come  in  second  for  you? 
No,  and  I  never  will.  You  won't  ever  be  sorry, 
Lilly — on  my  account.  You  won't  even  care  that 
I've  cut  off  my  hair.  Lilly  dear,  do  you  believe  me? 
I'm  always  going  to  come  in  first  for  you.  First!" 


STAR  DUST  393 

"I  do,  dear,  I  do." 

And  of  course  in  the  end  they  sobbed  together, 
and  lay  far  into  the  dawn,  cheek  to  cheek,  until  finally 
Zoe  dropped  off  to  sleep  and  Lilly  lay  wide-eyed 
beside  her,  the  perfume  of  her  child's  soft  breathing 
against  her  cheek. 

The  next  morning  in  the  reading  room  of  the  Public 
Library  a  notice  catapulted  itself  at  Lilly  from  the 
second  page  of  the  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat: 

L.  H.  Hines,  president,  and  Albert  Penny,  vice  president  of 
Slocum-Hines  Hardware  Company,  leave  shortly  for  Washing 
ton,  where  they  have  been  called  to  give  expert  advice  upon 
installing  American  Canteen  Service. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HTHE  day  that  followed  seemed  to  Lilly  vague 
*  with  a  sort  of  fog.  A  disturbing  something  lay 
against  her  consciousness  and  one  of  her  unquiet 
nights  was  filled  with  the  unaccountable  crying. 
But  morning  invariably  brought  back  reality  and 
her  workaday  could  envelop  her  busily,  even  happily. 

Meanwhile,  war,  like  a  spreading  wing,  had  black 
ened  against  the  international  sky.  Somme,  Vimy 
Ridge,  Aisne  had  been  bled,  and  more  than  ever  the 
streets  that  led  toward  the  embarkation  points  were 
the  color  of  khaki,  women  frequently  running  along 
side,  crying  and  laughing  bewildered  farewells. 

Some  of  this  war  hysteria,  of  which  she  was  really 
no  integral  part,  had,  however,  hold  of  Lilly.  Her 
throat  ached  with  it.  Her  state  cropped  out  in  her 
work.  One  afternoon  she  traveled  to  Newark  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  a  Japanese  sleight-of-hand  act, 
and  came  away  without  sufficient  impression  of  any 
kind  to  pass  judgment. 

Bruce  Visigoth  eyed  her  closely. 

"You're  tired,"  he  said,  commenting  upon  her 
failure  to  turn  in  the  report.  "You  need  a  rest." 

"No,"  she  said,  "it's  just — a  little  of  everything — 
I  guess — then  Harry  Calvert — that  was  a  shock,  you 
see,  and  now  his  grandmother.  I'm  with  her  at  the 
hospital  every  evening — and  then  this  war — this 
futile  bleeding — horror. ' ' 

He  could  never,  with  her,  keep  his  tone  as  level  as 
his  manner. 


STAR  DUST  395 

" Lilly,"  he  burst  out,  ''drop  it  all  for  a  couple  of 
weeks.  You  and  the  youngster  come  out  to  the 
place  in  Tarrytown.  There  are  some  things  I  want 
to  talk  over  with  you.  I'm  working  now  to  obtain 
the  rights  to  that  little  beauty  from  the  Spanish  you 
gave  me  to  read.  I'm  going  to  produce  after  this  war 
mess  slows  down.  It  is  the  exquisite  kind  of  thing 
I'd  expect  you  to  find." 

"I  didn't.  Zoe  read  it  to  me  one  evening.  She 
was  the  one  to  see  its  possibilities." 

"It's  spring,  Lilly,  and  I  want  you  to  see  the  place. 
My  sister  Pauline  moved  in  last  week.  I  want  you 
to  be  our  first  guest.  It's  spring,  Lilly — " 

It  was  his  first  mention  to  her  of  the  recent  pur 
chase  of  a  one-hundred-acre  estate  at  Tarrytown, 
although  in  her  capacity  of  notary  public  she  had 
officiated  at  the  drawing  up  of  certain  papers  and 
deed.  Blue  prints  of  plans  had  passed  through  her 
hands.  That  he  had  furnished  it  she  knew,  too, 
from  the  magnitude  of  breath-taking  bills  from 
decorators  and  dealers  exclusive  antique.  It  had 
piqued  her  more  than  she  would  admit,  his  failure 
to  solicit  even  her  advice  or  opinion.  There  was  a 
framed  photograph  of  plans  on  his  desk  in  the  office 
which  her  eyes  studiously  avoided.  Furtively  and  with 
the  edge  of  her  gaze,  she  knew  the  house  to  be  a  low- 
length  with  Tudor  peaks  to  it  that  gave  her  a  nostalgia 
for  pools  of  green  quiet  and  the  leafy  whisperings  of 
English  countrysides  she  had  never  seen. 

"I  want  you  out  at  the  place,  Lilly,  more  than  I  can 
say.  Please  come.  The  way  things  are  clouding  up, 
there  is  no  telling  how  soon  they'll  let  me  over  for 
active  service.  Lilly?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  can't.     Zoe  graduates  next  month,  and — " 
26 


396  STAR  DUST 

"Good  Lord!  the  youngster!" 

"Seventeen." 

He  whistled. 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged.  The  sun-kid.  Bring  her 
out  too,  Lilly." 

"Trieste  is  very  strict  with  her.  She  is  preparing 
for  her  audition  in  September,  and  even  if  it  could 
be  managed,  there  is  poor  Mrs.  Schum,  you  know." 

His  eagerness  would  not  endure  obstacle. 

"Bring  her  out,  too.  How's  that,  Lilly?  I'll  send 
a  limousine  full  of  pillows  for  her.  It  will  take 
Pauline's  mind  off  her  loneliness,  having  some  one  to 
mother.  We'll  put  her  up  in  a  sun  room  with  a  view 
of  pine  woods  and  Hudson  River  that  cannot  be 
surpassed.  It's  spring — Lilly — " 

"Poor  Mrs.  Schum!"  she  replied,  her  smile  tired 
and  twisted.  "I'm  afraid  her  next  journey  will  be  a 
longer  one  than  that." 

"Poor  soul!  Does  she  still  think  that  boy  of  hers 
is  fighting?" 

"Surely  there  is  no  wrong  in  saving  her  from  the 
horror  of  the  truth." 

"You  dear  girl,  of  course,  no.  It's  only  that — 
somehow  don't  you  think  that  before  she  passed  on 
she  ought  to  know  that  he's  gone  on  before — even 
if  you  have  to  tell  her  that  he  died — gloriously?" 

"I've  thought  of  that,"  she  said,  looking  away, 
"thought  and  thought  of  it." 

"Lilly,"  he  cried,  reaching  for  her  two  hands  She 
drew  them  back  quickly  and  walked  out. 

That  evening  when  she  presented  herself,  at  the 
hospital  the  nurse  met  her  outside  the  door  with 
her  finger  to  her  lips. 

"She  is  sinking,  but  conscious." 

Confronted  with  her  emergency,  Lilly  stood  before 


STAR  DUST  397 

that  closed  door,  beating  all  over  with  her  silent 
little  prayer: 

"O  God,  help  me!    Help  me,  help  her!" 

Mrs.  Schum  was  quite  conscious. 

"Lilly,"  she  said,  reaching  out  a  thin  old  hand 
that  was  covered  with  veins  as  round  as  cables, 
"I've  been  waiting." 

"Here  I  am,  dear." 

"I  think  I'm  done,  Lilly.  I — dream  so  much — 
of  God." 

"Why,  you're  better,  dear!" 

"No.  I'm  going.  I  wanted  so  to  wait  for  my  boy. 
The  doctor,  can't  he  help  me  to  wait,  Lilly?  Ask 
him  to  help  me  to  wait.  I  keep  thinking  he's  over 
there  somewhere — Harry — funny  isn't  it?  Over 
there  waiting.  You've  heard  no  news,  Lilly?" 

In  this  moment  more  propitious  than  she  dared 
hope  Lilly  leaned  over. 

"Yes,  dear,  there  is  news." 

"Harry?"  she  said  quickly  and  sharply,  lifting  her 
head. 

"Yes,  dear — Harry — is — over  there — waiting." 

"His  Mamma- Annie's  boy — they  were  all  against 
him.  He  can't  stay  back  here  alone — he  needs  me, 
doctor — help  me  to  wait  for  him — " 

"Listen,  dear — Harry's  gone." 

"Where?" 

"Why — over  there — just  as  your  intuition  told 
you." 

She  pulled  at  the  sheet  with  fingers  as  fleshless  as 
the  feet  of  a  bird,  moving  her  lips,  vainly  at  first, 
and  suddenly  jerked  herself  up  with  a  strength  no 
doctor  would  have  conceded  her. 

"He's  dead,  Lilly.  My  boy's  dead.  Please- 
please — it  is  so — isn't  it?  My  boy's  dead?" 


398  STAR]  DUST 

"Yes." 

"I  knew  it.  Oh,  Annie,  you're  the  mother  of  a 
soldier.  God  wouldn't  let  me  leave  him  back  here 
— alone.  I  wouldn't  have  left  him.  There  wasn't 
any  good  ahead  for  him.  That's  why  I  wanted  him 
to  die  like  a  soldier.  Before  he  should  come  to  the 
bad  places  ahead.  I  can  go  so  easy  now.  I'm  done. 
God  fixed  it  for  me— Lilly." 

She  held  the  racked  old  form  to  her,  kissed  away 
tears  that  the  washed  old  eyes  could  hardly  yield, 
made  a  couch  of  her  arms,  and  held  her  close  so  that 
their  heartbeats  met. 

"Lilly,  I  feel  so  easy.    I  never  felt  so  easy." 

"Lie  quietly,  dear." 

"Life  can  be  hard,  Lilly.  And  now — war.  Make 
it  easier  for  yourself.  Don't  let  him  out  there — go 
over  there — anywhere — reproaching.  Your  parents 
— your  child — it's  his  as  much  as  yours,  Lilly.  If  I  had 
gone  first,  my  boy  would  have  reproached.  There  is 
nothing  so  terrible,  Lilly — as  eyes  that  reproach — 
eyes — Lilly — don '  t . " 

"I— won't." 

She  drifted  off  then  in  the  placidity  of  a  sleep 
from  which  she  was  not  to  emerge. 

Lilly  walked  home  that  early  morning  following. 
Her  direction  lay  in  a  straight  line  through  Central 
Park.  Spring  was  out  in  firstlings  of  every  kind. 
The  baby  nap  of  new  grass.  Trees  ready  to  quiver 
into  leaf.  The  sun  came  up  from  behind  a  sky  line 
of  skyscrapers,  and  as  she  was  crossing  the  Mall  a 
fountain  rained  up  a  first  joyous  geyser,  some  spar 
rows  immediately  plunging  for  a  bath. 

She  sat  down  on  a  bench  there  in  the  lovely  quiet, 
quite  lax,  and,  because  of  its  pressure,  her  natty  little 


STAR  DUST  399 

blue  sailor  in  her  lap.  The  air  was  like  cool  water 
and  she  closed  her  tired  eyes  to  it. 

Finally  children  began  to  trot  past  on  their  way  to 
school.  She  heard  their  shouts  and  watched  them. 
A  father  passed  with  his  little  girl  by  the  hand  and 
carrying  her  sheaf  of  books.  A  boy  in  knicker 
bockers  lunged  furiously  on  roller  skates.  Another 
drove  his  ball  under  her  bench  and  she  smiled  as  she 
drew  aside  to  let  him  drive.  A  private  in  khaki  threw 
her  a  flirtatious  glance.  The  sun  found  her  finally. 

Then  Lilly  followed  one  of  her  curious  and  abso 
lutely  irrepressible  impulses,  one  that  must  have 
been  smoldering  who  knows  how  long. 

She  completed  her  walk  through  the  Park.  At 
Seventy-second  Street,  where  she  emerged,  a  family 
hotel,  one  of  those  de  luxe  mausoleums  to  family 
life,  reared  showily.  Without  pause  she  turned  in 
there,  finding  out  the  telegraph  desk;  wrote  her 
message  largely  and  flowingly,  leaning  over  while 
the  operator  read  out  the  words  to  her: 

Mr.  Albert  Penny,  5198  Page  Avenue,  St.  Louis,  Missouri. 
Won't  you  include  New  York  in  your  visit  to  Washington  and 
if  possible  bring  parents.  Try  to.  Lilly  Penny,  2348  West 
End  Avenue. 

Hearing  that  telegram  repeated,  the  pencil  marking 
time  word  by  word,  it  seemed  to  Lilly  that  each  one 
of  them  was  released  with  the  spring  of  an  arrow 
from  its  bow,  and  that  the  operator  recoiled,  stunned, 
from  the  impact  of  the  message. 

"Well,"  she  said,  leaning  farther  over  the  desk, 
and  for  some  reason  shaping  the  word  to  a  breathless 
question. 

"Fifty-one  cents,"  said  the  girl,  through  the 
inimitable  laconism  of  gum  chewing.' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OIX  hours  later  there  was  a  reply  folded  in  Lilly's 
**J  purse: 

We  leave  to-day  for  Washington.  Arrive  New  York  next 
Sunday  2.03  via  Pennsylvania.  Albert  Penny. 

An  incredible  state  of  calm  set  in.  She  had  the 
sensation  of  each  intervening  day  a  shelf  of  terrace 
down  which  she  was  walking  into  a  deepening  sea. 
Dreams  ill-flavored  as  Orestes'  filled  her  nights,  and 
how  tired  she  was  must  have  sopped  into  her  pillow, 
but  her  capacity  for  the  present  lessened  her  dread 
and  made  more  bearable  the  fluent  and  fateful 
passing  of  the  time. 

There  were  the  details  of  the  poor  little  funeral 
to  be  arranged.  Lilly,  who  had  never  known  death, 
was  suddenly  face  to  face  with  it  again,  at  a  time, 
too,  when  the  incipient  beginnings  of  pandemic  that 
was  later  to  scourge  the  country  was  reaping  its 
first  harvest ;  a  strange  malady  carried  on  the  stink 
ing  winds  of  war,  shooting  up  in  spouty  little  flames, 
that,  no  sooner  laid,  found  new  dry  rot  to  feed  upon. 
Spanish  influenza,  it  was  called,  for  no  more  visible 
reason  than  that  it  probably  had  its  beginnings  in 
Germany  or  India. 

On  the  Wednesday  of  Mrs.  Schum's  funeral  five 
of  the  Amusement  Enterprise  office  force  were  home 
with  it,  one  little  telephone  operator,  who  occasion 
ally  laid  the  surreptitious  offering  of  an  orange4  or  a 
carnation  on  Lilly's  desk,  succumbing. 


STAR  DUST  401 

It  was  amazing  how  light  the  imprint  of  Harry 
and  his  grandmother.  Of  effects  there  were  prac 
tically  none.  A  few  tired-looking  old  dresses  of  Mrs. 
Schum's.  Eleven  dollars  and  some  odd  change  in  a 
tin  box  behind  a  clock.  Harry's  pinch-back  suit 
with  the  slanting  pockets.  A  daguerreotype  or  two. 
The  inevitable  stack  of  modest  enough  but  unpaid 
bills.  Odds.  Ends.  And  in  a  wooden  soap  box 
shoved  beneath  Harry's  cot,  old  door  bells,  faucets, 
bits  of  pipe,  glass  door  knobs,  and,  laid  reverently 
apart,  a  stack  of  Lilly's  discarded  gloves,  placed  to 
simulate  the  print  of  the  hand. 

For  days,  Zoe,  who  had  taken  the  tired  willingness 
of  Mrs.  Schum  so  for  granted,  cried  herself  bitterly 
into  a  state  that  threatened  to  take  the  form  of  a 
fever,  and  then  to  the  strophe  and  antistrophe  of 
her  young  grief,  becoming  self-conscious,  burst,  with 
not  particularly  precocious  rhyme,  reason,  or  meter, 
into  the  following,  which  was  printed  in  her  school 
paper: 

"Teach  me  to  live,  0  God, 
If  sorrow  be  to  live, 
Then  let  me  know 

All  pain  that  it  can  give. 

"Teach  me  to  live,  0  God, 
To  know  the  gold  from  dross, 
To  live,  dear  God,  to  live. 
I  care  not  what  it  cost." 

And  Lilly,  the  dear  mother  dust  in  her  eyes,  had 
the  page  framed  beneath  a  faded  photograph  of  Mrs. 
Schum,  taken  when  her  lips  and  breast  were  young. 
,  To  attune  Zoe  to  the  coming  of  her  family  was  no 
small  matter.  She  was  outrageously  rebellious, 
flagrantly  irreverent,  and  for  every  outburst  Lilly 
bled  her  sense  of  blame. 


402  STAR  DUST 

' '  You Ve  made  a  farce  of  everything,  Lilly.  You Ve 
fought  for  a  principle  and,  with  it  won,  turned 
maudlin.  What  is  the  idea  ?  To  drag  me  back  there 
to  join  the  sewing  circle  and  the  local  society  for  the 
prevention  of  spinsterhood  to  maidens?" 

"You  are  not  funny  at  all.  You  know  you  are 
clear  of  that  kind  of  thing.  You're  like  an  arrow  on 
its  way  to  its  goal.  Straight  and  sure.  Nothing 
can  deflect  you.  That's  why  I  dared." 

"Well,  then?" 

"Realizations  can  come,  Zoe,  even  to  a  selfishness 
as  great  as  mine  has  been." 

"Sacrifice  is  not  always  beautiful.  It  can  be  silly 
and  futile." 

"Zoe!" 

"Yes,  and  bring  rewards  to  neither  side.  Half  the 
people  who  are  sacrificed  for  become  tearful  tyrants, 
and  those  who  do  the  sacrificing  sour  and  meek,  or 
holy  with  righteousness." 

"You  are  reciting  the  kind  of  thing  you  hear  down 
at  Daab's." 

"I'm  reciting  you." 

"You  darling  boomerang!" 

"I  suppose  now  you  are  sorry  you  didn't  stay  at 
home  in  your  canary  cage  to  no  one's  particular  ad 
vantage  and  your  own  terrific  disadvantage.  Now 
that  you  have  reared  me  into  the  kind  of  human 
being  you  set  out  to  be,  you  renig.  Do  you  want  to 
throw  me  back  into  that  bowl  with  the  greased 
sides  that  you  managed  to  climb  out  of?  Not 
much." 

This  from  Zoe,  mixed  metaphor  and  all,  who  at 
seventeen  kept  Doll's  House,  Freud,  Anna  Karenina, 
and  Ellen  Key  on  the  table  beside  her  bed. 

"Theories  go  down,  Zoe,  before  life- -and  death." 


STAR  DUST  403 

She  sat  haughtily  young,  and  without  tolerance, 
her  profile  averted  and  trying  to  keep  the  quiver  off 
her  lips. 

"Just  when  I'm  ready  to  graduate  and  preparing 
for  my  audition — to  have  this — " 

"Zoe— Zoe— don't  make  it  harder—" 

"I'm  a  dog,  Lilly — forgive  me." 

"The  entire  abominable  condition  is  my  fault — " 

"Then  thank  God  for  the  abominable  condition. 
I  love  you  and  everything  you've  done." 

"Then  be  sweet  to  them  for  my  sake.  Your 
grandmother,  she's  going  to  be  unlike  anyone  you 
have  ever  known.  She's  a  great  one  to  pick  up  the 
bread  crumbs  of  life  with  a  great  ado.  That's  been 
her  existence,  dear — little  things.  And  your  grand 
father,  Zoe,  he's  so  gentle.  Somehow  I  imagine  he  is 
even  gentler  now.  You  remember  I  used  to  tell  you 
how  we'd  play  at  hide  and  seek  long  after  I  was 
grown .  Oh ,  Zoe ,  be  sweet ! ' ' 

"I  will,  dear." 

"And — your  father.  Whatever  his  attitude  may 
be,  remember  the  fault  lies  in  me — not  him." 

"Trust  me,  Lilly,  if  only  he  doesn't  drop  dead 
when  he  sees  me!" 

"Zoe!" 

Between  them  the  little  drama  was  carefully 
rehearsed. 

"Visi  would  pay  big  money  for  this  act." 

"You'll  be  your  own  natural  sweet  self,  Zoe?  No 
posing?" 

"Don't  worry.  I  suppose  if  the  truth  is  known 
I'll  have  an  aggravated  case  of  stage  fright." 

"They'll  know — everything,  Zoe,  before  I  let  them 
see  you.  Just  be  simple,  dear — and  please — no 
dramatics!" 


4o4  STAR  DUST 

"It's  all  too  dramatic  for  dramatics,"  she  replied, 
cryptically. 

It  was  finally  decided  that  Lilly  was  to  meet  the 
train  alone,  settle  the  trio  at  the  Hotel  Astor,  and 
arrive  at  the  apartment  in  time  for  a  dinner  pre 
pared  by  a  cook  and  waitress  especially  brought  in 
for  the  day. 

"Break  the  news  in  a  public  place,  Lilly — the  hotel 
lobby  or  a  taxi — and  avoid  family  fireworks." 

"My  news  can't  be  broken." 

"Why?" 

"Smashed,  rather." 

At  four  o'clock  the  morning  of  the  arrival,  Lilly 
was  up,  moving  with  the  aimlessness  of  great  nerv 
ousness  about  the  apartment.  At  that  same  hour 
Mrs.  Becker  was  emerging  backward  from  her 
sleeper,  kimono-clad,  and  bulging  through  the  cur 
tains  into  the  dark  aisle. 

"Carrie,"  her  husband  whispered  after  her,  jutting 
his  head  out  with  a  turtle's  dart,  "it's  only  three 
o'clock,  Eastern  time.  Why  are  you  getting  up?" 

"Because  I  want  to,"  she  said,  plowing  on. 

Once  in  the  dressing  room,  she  fell  to  crying  as  she 
staggered  and  dressed,  apparently  because  each 
object,  as  she  took  it  up,  fell  from  her  fingers. 

And  yet  the  meeting  occurred,  as  dreaded  and 
anticipated  moments  often  do,  damply,  and  as  a 
heavily  loaded  bomb,  for  one  reason  or  another,  can 
go  off  with  a  cat  cough. 

To  the  observer,  what  happened  that  early  after 
noon  was  simply  a  very  trim  and  very  tailored  young 
woman,  her  boyishness  of  attire  somewhat  accentu 
ated  because  her  swift  clean-cutness  was  so  obviously 
its  inspiration,  greeting,  in  the  marble  vastness  of 
Grand  Central  Terminal,  a  trio  of  what  was  plainly 


STAR  DUST  405 

a  pair  of  travel-stained  parents  and  perhaps  an 
uncle. 

Standing  there  peering  between  the  grillwork  as 
the  train  slid  in  through  the  greasy  gloom,  watching 
the  run  of  "red  caps"  and  the  slow  disgorging  of  pas 
sengers,  Lilly  saw  it  all  in  waves  of  movement, 
waves  of  heat,  waves  of  gaseous  unreality. 

Then  she  spied  them.  Her  mother  in  the  old, 
familiar  vanguard,  her  father  with  that  bulge  to  his 
back  from  which  the  gray  coat  hung  loosely,  Albert 
struggling  to  save  his  luggage  from  the  fiery  piracy 
of  a  "red  cap." 

Her  first  sense  was  of  fatness,  their  incredible, 
caravaning,  lumbaginous  fatness !  There  was  a  new 
chin  to  her  mother.  Gone  was  the  old  pulled-in 
waistline,  but  the  old  love  of  finery  was  out  on  her 
hat  in  ostrich  plumes,  a  boa  of  marabou  lending 
further  elegance.  And  her  father !  He  was  somehow 
behind  himself,  slanting  out  from  neck  to  quite  a 
bulge  of  abdomen,  then  receding  again  to  legs  that 
caught  her  throat  with  a  sense  of  their  being  too  thin 
to  sustain  him.  The  fringe  of  hair  that  showed  be 
neath  his  slouch  hat  was  quite  white,  too,  and  with 
that  same  clutch  at  her  throat  she  saw  that  it  was 
thin  as  a  baby's  can  be  thin. 

It  is  doubtful  if  she  would  have  known  Penny. 
He  was  himself  in  sebaceous  italics.  The  old  stolidity 
of  stature  was  there,  but  hardly  the  solidity.  Like 
Mrs.  Becker,  he  had  chubbied  up,  so  to  speak, 
until  he  looked  shorter.  And  Albert  was  bald. 
It  showed  out  under  the  rear  of  his  derby,  like  a 
well-scrubbed  visage  awaiting  some  deft  hand  to 
sketch  in  the  features,  as  poor  Harry  had  done  it 
to  the  clothespins.  His  Scandinavian  blondness 
was  quite  gone;  there  was  just  a  fringe  of  tan  hair 


406  STAR  DUST 

left  and  his  jowls  hung  a  bit,  of  skin  not  quite  filled 
with  flesh. 

All  this  in  a  telegraphic  flash  as  she  stood  there 
waiting,  and  at  the  sight  of  her  father,  on  his  too  thin 
legs,  dragging  his  cane  slightly  so  that  it  scraped,  and 
in  the  other  hand  a  sagging  old  black  valise  that  she 
remembered,  all  the  tightness  at  her  throat  relaxed 
suddenly,  the  tears  coming  so  easily  that  she  could 
smile  through  them. 

The  dragging  of  that  cane,  it  hurt  her  poignantly, 
as  little  vagrant  memories  can. 

They  spied  her  out  even  as  she  spied  them,  and, 
bodybeat  to  bodybeat,  she  and  her  mother  met, 
shaking  to  silent  sobs  and  twisting  hearts.  Then  her 
father,  pressing  the  coldly  smelling  mustache  to  her 
lips  and  lifting  her  in  the  old  way  by  the  armpits, 
so  that  the  instant  closed  over  her  like  a  swoon. 

With  Albert  it  was  strangely  easier;  there  was  a 
pause  as  wide  as  a  hair  while  he  stood  there  blinking, 
and  weighted  with  his  unsurrendered  luggage. 

" Albert,"  she  said,  finding  the  word  at  last. 

At  that  moment,  a  "red  cap,"  wild  for  fee,  made 
for  one  of  the  brand-new  leather  cases. 

"Let  go,"  he  cried,  in  small  anger.  "That  is  a  six- 
dollar-and-ninety-eight-cent  bag  you  are  jerking." 

Then  he  brought  his  gaze  back  to  Lilly,  his  Adam's 
apple  above  the  gray  necktie  throbbing  so  that  it 
seemed  to  her  his  entire  body  must  reverberate  to 
the  pistonlike  process. 

"Well,"  he  said.  "Well,  well,"  the  words  dropping 
down  into  the  dry  well  of  a  gulp. 

But  somehow  after  the  episode  of  the  luggage, 
everything  was  easier,  for  Lilly  at  least.  She  could 
smile  now. 

Very  presently  they  were  actually  in  a  taxicab 


STAR  DUST  407 

together,  the  talk  of  the  moment  echoing  against  the 
silence  of  unspoken  words  taking  shape  between 
them. 

''Papa!"  she  said,  finally,  from  the  little  folding 
seat  opposite  him,  stroking  his  hands  and  steadying 
herself  with  them  against  the  throw  of  the  cab. 
"Oh,  papa,  papa!" 

He  smiled  back  through  crinkles  that  were  new  to 
her,  patting  her  in  turn  and  looking  off. 

Mrs.  Becker  fell  to  crying,  pressing  her  handker 
chief  up  against  her  eyes  and  trying  to  lift  her  veil 
above  the  tears. 

"After  all  these  years,"  she  kept  repeating. 
"Years.  Years." 

"Now,  now,  Carrie — you  promised." 

"What  hotel?"  asked  Penny,  one  of  the  bags 
across  his  knees  and  one  weather  eye  for  the  other 
on  the  driver's  seat. 

"The  Astor;  that  is  one  of  the  best.  I've  your 
rooms  all  arranged  for.  My — my  place  is  too  small." 

"A  less  expensive  would  do,  wouldn't  it,  mother?" 
addressing  himself,  without  once  meeting  Lilly's  eye, 
to  his  mother-in-law. 

"You're  my  guests,"  she  said,  trying  to  smile 
down  old  aversions.  "This  is  my  party." 

"Years—"  sobbed  Mrs.  Becker.  "She  looks  the 
same,  but  I'm  a  stranger  to  my  own  child.  Ben, 
we're  strangers." 

They  were  all  suddenly  in  tears,  Mr.  Becker  laying 
a  clumsy  hand  to  his  wife's  arm. 

"Carrie,  you  promised — " 

"Can't  help  it — can't  help  it,"  her  lips  bubbling. 
"I'm  bursting  with  it.  All  these  years.  I  can't 
hold  in.  What  mother  could?" 

Only  their  arrival  at  the  hotel  stemmed  the  rising 


4o8  STAR  DUST 

tide,  but,  once  up  in  their  aerial  suite  of  rooms,  the 
last  bell  hop  tipped  out,  then  broke  the  storm  wave, 
flaying  them  all. 

''Lilly — Lilly  let  me  look  at  you.  Baby — are 
you  my  baby — are  you  mine?  Years — O  God — 
years — " 

' '  Mamma — mamma — ' ' 

' '  Feel  my  heart.  Ben  —  tell  her  —  what  I've 
suffered — " 

"Carrie — now — now — what  is  past  is  past;  we 
must  look  to  the  present  now." 

"Papa  dear — you  look  so  changed  and  yet  so — 
natural — " 

There  was  an  air  of  indescribable  prosperity  that 
rose  off  Mr.  Becker,  in  the  nondescript  but  excellent 
quality  of  the  gray  suiting,  the  polished,  square-toed, 
custom-made  shoes,  the  little  linen  string  of  necktie, 
one  for  each  day,  the  kind,  despite  family  suasion,  he 
had  always  worn.  But  it  was  difficult  for  him  to 
speak  now  because  he  was  always  blinking  and 
looking  off. 

"You've  given  us  a  great  sorrow  to  bear,  Lilly," 
he  said,  in  a  tone  of  rehearsed  reproach.  "We  tried 
to  be  thankful  for  our  health  and — bear  our — " 

"There  he  goes  on  health  again  at  a  time  like  this. 
I'm  a  broken  woman.  Years!  Years  of  explaining 
lies  to  the  community.  Years  of  holding  up  our 
heads  over  an  opera  singer  that  nobody  ever  hears 
about  and  that  never  came  home  to  her  folks.  Years 
of  feeling  them  laugh  behind  our  backs — your  father 
and  husband  trying  to  hold  up  their  heads  in  business 
under  the  lie.  What  have  I  ever  done,  I've  asked 
myself  all  these  years — to  deserve  it?  I've  never 
harmed  anyone.  I've — " 

"Carrie— please." 


STAR  DUST  409 

tc  Where  do  you  live  ?  How  do  you  live  ?  A  stranger 
to  my  own  child.  Worse  than  a  stranger!" 

"I've  a  well-paid  position  with  a  producing  firm, 
mamma,  and  I  live  nicely.  You  shall  see,  dear." 

"Producing?  Producing  what?  Trouble?  A 
position!  For  that  she  threw  away  her  life.  Her  big 
talk  of  prima  donna,  and  we  find  her  in  a  position. 
The  girl  that  was  going  to  set  the  world  on  fire. 
That's  why  we  looked  our  eyes  out  all  these  years 
for  her  name  in  the  paper,  only  to  find  her  in  a  posi 
tion!  Ben,  what  have  we  ever  done  to  deserve  it? 
Albert,  I'm  her  mother,  but  my  heart  bleeds  for 
you—" 

He  was  tugging  at  his  bag  straps,  industriously 
keeping  his  head  averted,  but  the  red  up  in  his  ears. 

"Mother,"  he  said,  "did  you  pack  my  throat 
atomizer?" 

She  licked  up  at  the  taste  of  her  tears. 

"It's  wrapped  in  between  your  socks.  You're 
standing  in  a  draught,  Albert;  close  that  window. 
You  heard  that  man  in  the  train  about  the  epidemic 
of  colds  that  is  starting  all  over  the  country.  O  my 
God!  I'm  just  so  upset.  And  now  that  it  has  hap 
pened  everything  is  so  different.  I  could  tear  out  my 
tongue  for  what  I  want  to  say  and  I  can't  say  any 
thing — not  so  much  your  father  and  I — at  least  we 
had  Albert  to  help  make  it  up  to  us.  We  know  what 
a  son  he  has  been,  don't  we,  Ben,  but  to  think  of 
him,  the  upstandingest  boy  that  ever  wore  shoe 
leather — him  having  to  suffer  for  it — " 

"Carrie,  Carrie,  it's  time  to  go  over  all  that  later. 
Let's  get  our  bearings.  Lilly,  you've  not  changed 
except  for  the  bones  kind  of  setting  and — " 

"I  don't  like  you  in  those  shirt  waists.  Too  man 
nish.  The  lace  I  used  to  dress  that  child  in!  The 


4io  STAR  DUST 

way  I  used  to  love  to  poke  in  the  bins — sacrificed  for 
her.  These  years — years.  Lilly — tell  me  you've  been 
a  good  girl — that  your  sinning  has  only  been  against 
us — child  that  I  raised — Lilly — " 

They  were  locked  in  embrace  again,  Mrs.  Becker 
blown  hot  and  cold  by  the  ever-shifting  clouds  of 
her  emotions,  the  two  men  standing  by  in  a  state  of 
helplessness  that  was  always  in  inverse  proportion  to 
the  lavalike  eruptions  from  the  crater  of  her  nerves. 

"Mother,  father  and  I  will  leave  you  alone  for  a. 
while  and  you  have  your  talk  together  first — " 

"No!  She's  your  wife.  You  have  yours  first! 
It's  about  time  you  were  coming  into  some  of  your 
rights!" 

Such  a  fiery  redness  was  out  in  Albert's  ears  that 
against  the  lights  they  were  of  the  translucency  of 
red-hot  iron,  and  even  through  her  pity  for  his 
malaise,  her  old  poignant  distaste  of  him  would  not 
be  laid.  She  wanted  him  to  lunge  somehow  with 
that  bull-like  head  of  his  with  the  bashedin  square 
ness  to  its  top,  but  since  nothing  like  that  happened, 
she  sprang  up  instead,  grasping  her  mother's  hand. 

"Not  now,"  she  cried.  "I  want  to  tell  you  all 
something  first,  and  then  I  want  to  take  you — to  my 
place — to  see  where — the  way  I  live — " 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Becker,  rising  with  a  crinkling 
of  nose  and  drawing  her  marabout  boa  about  her, 
"I  want  to  see  the  way  you  live — first.  Guests  of 
hers  at  a  hotel  like  this.  A  position,  she  tells  me. 
Lilly — Lilly — for  God's  sake  tell  me  you've  been  a 
good  girl—" 

"Carrie!"  At  the  sound  of  rare  thunder  in  her 
husband's  voice  she  did  subside  then.  Later  she 
began. 

"Nice  rooms.     Nicer  than  in  Chicago  that  time. 


STAR  DUST  411 

Albert,  let  me  give  you  a  clean  handkerchief  out  of 

the  valise No,  you  don't  know  where  they  are. 

Don't  like  that  shirt  waist.  Too  mannish.  Don't 
worry  about  those  pillows,  Albert.  I  brought  your 
little  one  along.  Glass  tops.  That's  nice,  isn't  it  ? 
How  would  you  like  one  for  your  chiffonier  at 
home,  Albert?  Quit  whittling  toothpicks  on  the 
floor,  Ben —  Oh  dear !  if  somebody  don't  say  some 
thing,  I'll  scream — " 

1  'Come,  mamma — papa — Albert.  I  want  to  take 
you — home,  and  while  we  drive  up  there  I  want  to 
talk  to  you." 

But  once  within  the  cab  and  with  her  mother's 
constant  runnel  of  talk  and  its  threat  of  hysteria, 
courage  failed  Lilly,  so  she  sat  back,  holding  herself 
against  rising  panic  and  her  mind  refusing  to  hook 
tentacles  into  the  situation  toward  which  they  were 
speeding. 

"You  look  mighty  well,  Lilly,"  her  father  would 
repeat,  gently;  "not  much  changed,  but  a  little 
more  settled — in  the  bones — " 

"Who  does  your  darning  and  mending?" 

"I  do,  mamma.  See,  this  is  Broadway,  papa. 
We're  just  rounding  the  famous  Columbus  Circle." 

"I  don't  see  much  difference  between  this  and  St. 
Louis.  Do  you,  Ben  ?  Just  stores  and  stores  like  there 
are  on  Olive  Street.  Oh,  look !  There  is  one  of  the 
Ryan  Cut  Price  Drug  Stores,  just  like  we  have  at 
home.  Look  at  the  crowds  around  that  thing — 
what's  that?  'Subway,'  it  says — " 

"Lilly,  Lilly,  it  makes  me  tremble  when  I  think 
of  you  in  this  great  city  alone." 

"Why,  papa,  I  never  was  so  safe." 

"It's  not  decent,  that's  what  it's  not." 

"Now,  Carrie—" 
27 


4i2  STAR  DUST 

"Stop   cutting  me   off  every   time   I   open  my| 
mouth." 

"How  far  is  it?"  asked  Albert,  speaking  for  the 
first  time. 

"Why,  I  guess  it  ought  to  take  about  ten  minutes' 
from  here,"  replied  Lilly,  grateful  for  the  question 
and  trying  to  meet  his  averted  glance. 

He  withdrew  quite  a  disk  of  silver  watch,  reading 
it  carefully. 

"We're  already  on  the  way  seven  and  a  quarter 
minutes,"  he  said. 

"Albert,"  she  began,  "there  is  something  I  want 
to — ought  to — tell  you — first — " 

"Albert,  close  that  window  next  to  you." 

"I — don't  quite  know — how  to  begin — " 

"Close  it  all  the  way,  Albert,  you're  still  in  a 
draught." 

Suddenly  Lilly  sat  back,  silent  holding  her  father's 
hand  the  rest  of  the  way. 

But  no  sooner  were  the  three  of  them  safely  into 
the  little  front  room  than,  without  even  seating  them, 
she  rushed  out  to  forestall  Zoe. 

But  too  late.  That  young  lady  herself  had  already 
appeared  between  the  curtains  of  the  alcove.  She 
had  done  the  outlandish,  the  outrageous,  the  irrele 
vant  thing. 

An  old  red  rep  portiere  wound  tightly  around  her 
body  to  below  the  armpits,  and  held  there  by  skill 
fully  adjusted  bands  of  black  velvet,  a  fillet  of  the 
same  so  low  that  it  touched  her  eyebrows  secured 
about  her  boxed  and  brilliantly  blond  hair,  she  held 
the  half -profile  pose  of  a  Carmencita,  a  pair  of  ten- 
cent-store  black  earrings  dangling  and  her  upflung 
gesture  one  of  defiance,  mischief  with  an  unmistak 
able  dash  of  irrepressible  dramatics. 


STAR  DUST  413 

In  a  silence  that  shaped  itself  to  a  grin,  Lilly, 
caught  midstep  as  it  were,  stood  regarding  her 
daughter.  She  wanted  to  scream,  to  throw  back 
her  head  and  shout  her  hysteria,  to  spank  her 
daughter  bodily  there  across  her  knees,  and  more 
than  that  she  wanted  to  laugh !  Enormous  laughter, 
to  allay  her  sense  of  madness. 

Instead  she  found  voice,  which,  when  it  came,  was 
not  her  own,  for  thinness. 

"Albert,"  she  said,  "this  is  your  daughter — Zoe." 

"Ben,"  whispered  Mrs.  Becker,  out  of  a  fantastic 
cave  of  silence  and  rising  suddenly  from  her  chair  to 
plant  herself  on  the  overstuffed  divan,  where  there 
was  more  horizontal  room — "Ben,  I  think  I'm  going 
to  faint." 

And  she  did. 


CHAPTER   IX 

VET  within  a  week  Mrs.  Becker,  through  all  the  fog 
1  of  her  bewilderment,  was  embroidering  seed  pearls 
on  her  granddaughter's  white  graduation  slippers. 

Forty  years  of  dogged  loyalty  to  the  white  string 
ties,  fresh  every  day,  had  gone  down  before  seven- 
teen's  mandate;  and  to  Ben  Becker's  unspeakable 
sheepishness,  he  had  appeared  one  evening  in  an 
impeccable  dark-blue  knitted  cravat,  his  collar,  of 
cut  heretofore  easily  inclusive  of  chin,  snugger  to 
his  neck,  and  flowing  out  to  slight  points. 

"So  you  let  her  bamboozle  you  into  something  I 
couldn't  accomplish  in  thirty-eight  years,"  was  Mrs. 
Becker's  sole  comment  through  a  mouthful  of  seed 
pearls. 

"Nonsense!  The  child  has  ideas.  These  collars 
don't  dig  in." 

"Humph!  She's  had  you  around  her  little  finger 
from  the  start." 

"Now,  Carrie,  why  do  you  say  that?" 

"Because  it's  true,"  trying  not  to  smile. 

It  was. 

An  immediate  entente  cordiale  had  shaped  itself 
around  Zoe  and  her  grandfather.  She  named  him 
with  her  usual  fantastic  aptitude. 

"Dapple-dear,"  she  would  have  it,  and  could  not 
explain  the  choice.  It  must  have  been  some  such 
remote  analogy  as  his  likeness  to  an  old  dapple-gray 
family  horse,  patient  flanked  and  thoroughly  im 
perturbable  to  the  fleck  of  the  whip. 


STAR  DUST  415 

Her  grandmother  she  promptly  christened  "Tip 
py,"  also  for  a  reason  she  could  not  or  would  not 
divulge.  But  one  evening,  to  her  secret  amusement, 
Lilly  found  a  sheet  of  paper  in  the  litter  of  the  desk, 
jotted  all  over  with  Zoe's  joyous  scrawl,  "Zantippe," 
in  every  case  the  first  syllable  crossed  out. 

All  but  Albert.  She  addressed  him  quite  studiedly, 
"Father,"  her  teeth  coming  down  in  a  little  bite 
over  her  lower  lip,  her  use  of  the  term  never  failing 
to  elicit  the  rush  of  red  to  his  ears. 

He  seemed  tranced,  falling  into  all  plans,  just  so 
they  included  the  presence  of  his  mother-in-law, 
without  comment.  To  her  proverbial  apron  strings 
he  kept  firm  hold,  literally  not  permitting  her  out 
of  his  sight.  Even  when  he  addressed  Lilly  or  his 
daughter  his  gaze  was  straight  for  Mrs.  Becker,  and 
the  flags  of  her  moral  support  that  he  must  have 
had  the  eyes  to  see  waving  for  him  in  her  glance. 

The  impending  interview  began  to  take  on  the 
proportions  of  a  delayed  tooth-pulling.  Repeatedly 
Lilly  had  cleared  the  way  for  it ;  just  as  repeatedly  he 
had  fled  to  cover.  A  week  passed. 

Meanwhile  something  disquieting  happened.  It 
developed  in  further  correspondence  from  Washing 
ton  on  the  matter  of  canteen  equipment,  that  there 
was  some  thought  of  sending  Albert  to  France.  An 
increased  stolidity  was  his  sole  reaction,  but  there 
was  no  doubt  that  the  prospect  of  an  impending 
ocean  trip  weighed  heavily. 

The  submarine  situation,  at  a  time  when  the  seas 
were  sown  with  the  menace  of  sudden  death,  was  of 
greatest  and  worrying  concern  to  him. 

No  new  device  was  overlooked.  His  room  at  the 
hotel  was  littered  with  rubber  suits,  guaranteed  to 
keep  the  body  floating  upright  for  thirteen  hours. 


416  STAR  DUST 

Adjustable  cork  life  savers.  Patent  ^propellers. 
Wings. 

There  was  talk,  in  the  face  of  the  impending  con 
tingency,  of  applying  for  a  commission.  Albert  in 
olive  drab !  To  Lilly  he  would  not  conjure. 

But  meanwhile,  to  the  slow  champings  of  a  huge 
governmental  machine  in  travail,  there  was  little  to 
do  but  wait,  and  in  the  interim  not  a  day  that  he 
and  Mrs.  Becker  failed  to  follow  up  this  or  that 
newest  device  against  bone-cracking  seas. 

"Albert,  there  must  be  a  way  out!  Don't  tell  me 
there  are  not  plenty  of  men  who  could  help  install 
canteen  service.  Let  them  send  Vincent  Bankhead. 
He's  younger.  You  leave  it  to  me  if  they  decide  to 
send  you.  I'll  find  you  a  way  out.  It's  done  every 
day." 

"Wait  until  I'm  called,  mother;  then  there's  time 
to  act." 

But  his  eyes  were  worried. 

One  day  when  the  strain  of  holding  together  the 
precarious  threads  of  the  situation  was  becoming 
almost  more  than  she  could  bear,  and  the  end  of  the 
ten-day  vacation  period  she  was  allowing  herself 
from  the  office  was  at  hand,  Lilly  spread  three  matinee 
tickets  out  on  the  table  of  a  tea  room  where  the  five 
of  them  were  lunching. 

"Zoe,  you  and  your  grandparents  are  going  to 
the  Hippodrome  this  afternoon.  Albert  and  I  will 
take  a  walk  or  a  drive  and  meet  you  at  the  hotel 
afterward." 

"Mother,  you  come,  too." 

"No,  Albert,  Lilly's  right.  I  want  this  thing 
settled.  I  want  something  decided  or  I'll  go  mad. 
My  husband  has  got  me  muzzled ;  I'm  afraid  to  open 
my  mouth;  but  if  I  don't  know  something  soon,  I'll 


STAR  DUST  417 

go  crazy.  Why  are  we  here  ?  When  are  we  all  going 
back?  I  don't  like  it  here.  I  can't  stand  the  noise. 
My  servant  girl  is  out  there  eating  me  out  of  house 
and  home.  I  didn't  even  lock  the  grocery  closet; 
that  is  the  state  of  excitement  I  left  home  in.  Some 
thing  has  got  to  be  settled.  The  minute  I  open  my 
mouth  to  talk  about  what  is  in  the  back  of  all  our 
heads,  everybody  shushes  me  up.  Now  you  two  go 
and  talk  it  out.  I  want  to  go  home.  I  want  us  all  to 
go  home.  I'm  a  wreck.  I — " 

"Carrie—" 

"Oh,  I'll  shut  up!  Next  time  you  travel  with  me, 
get  me  a  muzzle.  All  I'm  good  for  is  to  bear  the 
brunt  of  everything.  You've  dribbled  my  head  full 
of  enough  these  last  seventeen  years  to  drive  any 
woman  but  me  crazy.  But  with  her,  it's  a  soft  mouth. 
I'll  shut  up,  but  for  God's  sake  settle  things.  I'm 
going  crazy.  I  can't  stand  it." 

The  look  of  one  trapped  settled  over  Albert. 

* '  I  think  I  'd  rather  walk, ' '  he  said ;  ' '  those  cabs  are 
reckless  and  the  meters  run  up  so." 

"Don't  curl  up  your  lips  so,  Lilly,  over  a  little 
economy.  Albert's  right.  What  good  does  it  do  you 
to  earn,  the  way  you  spend?  Your  husband  has 
forty  thousand  dollars  to  show,  and  what  have  you 
to  show?  Taxicab  rides  don't  draw  any  interest. 
Don't  be  so  ready  to  curl  up  your  lips." 

"Why,  mamma,  you  imagine  things!"  And  to 
Albert,  "Of  course,  let's  walk." 

For  two  hours,  then,  oftentimes  stopping  to  face 
each  other,  they  paced  the  wind-swept  rectangle  of 
the  reservoir  in  Central  Park,  spring  out  in  the  air, 
but  quite  a  tear  of  breeze  across  their  high  place. 

He  was  sullen,  casuistic,  and  impenetrable  as  a 
sea  wall  under  a  dashing,  and  the  thought  came  to 


4i8  STAR  DUST 

her  that  had  he  presented  any  other  surface  it  would 
have  been  easier. 

"Well,  Albert,"  she  began,  facing  him  there  in  the 
wide  afternoon  light,  "what  is  there  that  we  two  can 
say  to  each  other?" 

"Words,"  he  said,  stodgy  in  his  bitterness,  "mean 
nothing  against  seventeen  years." 

"You're  right.  And  yet — I  want  you  to  know, 
Albert — before  you  go  across — " 

"Don't  be  too  sure  you'll  be  rid  of  me  that  way." 

"Or  before  you  go  back  home — that  she  is  yours 
as  much  as  mine  and — " 

"Generous,"  he  said,  dryly. 

She  could  have  beaten  her  head  with  a  sense  of 
futility. 

"You've  been  a  bad  woman  with  a  streak  of  devil 
in  you.  Tried  to  ruin  my  life,  but  I  didn't  let  you. 
No,  siree!  I've  worked  things  out.  I've  gotten  on. 
I'm  big  in  my  way — in  my  business — in  my  home." 

"Albert,  I  love  to  hear  you  say  that!" 

"You!  You  don't  love  anything  or  anybody  out 
side  yourself." 

"Why?  Because  I  took  my  chance  to  save  myself 
from  everything  I — I  hated!  Not  you — not  they — 
but  everything  it  stands  for  out  there.  Does  self- 
preservation  imply  only  selfishness?" 

"Whatever  it  implies,"  he  answered,  stung  to 
dark  red  by  his  effort  forzquick  retort,  "you're  selfish 
— rotten  selfish.  But  you  haven't  kept  me  down. 
I've  gotten  up  these  eighteen  years — and  you — you — 
Bah!" 

1 '  You' ve  been  happy,  Albert  ?    Tell  me  you  have. ' ' 

"Happy!  I'm  not  a  hog  for  happiness.  You  to 
inquire  about  my  happiness!  Lots  you  care!  I've 
had  my  share  of  contentment.  Contented  as  a  man 


"  STAR  DUST  419 

can  be  in  a  community  where  he  has  kept  up  a  farce 
for  seventeen  years  that  his  wife  is  off  with  his  con 
sent  studying  opera.  But  I've  kept  my  name — kept 
it  in  spite  of  you.  I  don't  know  what's  been  what 
with  you.  Guess  if  the  truth  is  known,  I'm  afraid  to 
think  what's  what!" 

"Albert—" 

"Oh,  I  don't  put  anything  past  you.  I  don't  even 
know  if  that  girl  is  mine.  For  all  I  know  you're  a — " 

"Albert!" 

"Bah!    I  don't  put  anything  past  you!" 

She  faced  his  words  as  if  they  were  blows,  letting 
them  rain. 

"You're  lying,  Albert,"  she  said,  evenly.  "She's 
yours  and  you  know  it." 

"I've  kept  my  name !  Kept  it  and  tried  to  make  it 
up  to  your  parents,  who  deserved  better  than  you!" 

She  quivered  and  the  red  that  sprang  out  in  her 
face  was  almost  purple,  and  yet  by  her  silence  bared 
her  chest  for  more,  as  if  grateful  for  the  sting  of  the 
lash. 

"Bah!  Don't  be  afraid.  I  don't  want  to  know 
anything,  but  I'm  not  the  booby  I  may  seem  to  you. 
When  a  woman  has  lived  around  this  way  for  all 
these  years,  in  with  a  gang  of  show  folks —  Bah!  I 
don't  want  to  know."  And  spat. 

"She's  yours,  Albert,  and  you  know  it.  You 
know  it!" 

"Yes,  I  guess  she  is,  from  the  look  of  her,  not  that 
I  put  anything  past  you.  But  that's  your  business. 
You're  nothing  to  me.  I'm  cured  of  you.  You 
couldn't  make  me  suffer  the  way  they  do  in  books. 
I've  kept  my  name,  so  if  it's  divorce  you  have  on 
your  brain,  you  might  as  well  get  it  out,  because — " 

"No,  Albert—" 


420  STAR  DUST 

"I've  kept  my  name,  whatever  you've  done  to 
yours.  Your  life  is  your  business.  But  the  girl. 
That's  where  I  have  a  right  or  two  coming  to  me." 

She  was  prepared  for  just  this,  but  somehow  when 
it  came  it  was  a  full  moment  before  she  could  answer, 
for  the  rush  of  fear  that  choked  her. 

"That's  for— for  Zoe  to  decide." 

"That's  for  me  to  decide.  She  goes  to  a  decent, 
respectable  home  where  she  belongs.  You're  not  fit 
to  raise  her.  Look  at  what  you  made  of  her.  A 
fine  specimen.  A  short-haired  freak  with  all  your 
crazy  ideas  thriving  in  her  head.  You've  ruined  your 
life,  but  you  didn't  succeed  in  ruining  mine  and  you 
won't  ruin  hers.  You  and  your  stage-struck  notions 
that  never  got  you  anywhere.  She's  going  home 
where  she  belongs!" 

She  could  hardly  breathe  for  keeping  down  the 
rising  tide  of  her  terror,  but  her  eyes  were  always 
cold  for  him. 

"Your  daughter  has  a  lyric-soprano  voice,  and 
however  little  that  may  mean  to  you  she  is  going  to 
delight  the  world  with  it  some  day.  One  of  the  great 
masters  of  the  world  has  made  her  his  protegee.  She 
is  preparing  for  her  audition — her  hearing — in  the 
fall,  and  it  is  even  possible  she  may  be  singing  in 
grand  opera  next  season.  You  cannot — " 

"111  see  her  dead  first.  You  were  an  opera  bird, 
too.  I'll  see  her  dead  first  before  I  let  her  make  a  zero 
mark  out  of  her  life  as  her  crazy  mother  did  before  her. ' ' 

"Albert,  can't  you  see!  Zoe's  the  wine.  You, 
mamma — papa — the  vine.  I  don't  count.  I — I'm 
sort  of  the  grape — that  fermented — you  see!  She's 
me — plus.  Her  arm  is  long  enough  to  touch  what  she 
wants.  Mine  wasn't.  I  saw  it,  but  I  couldn't  reach. 
I  was  one  generation  too  underdone.  You  cannot 


STAR  DUST  421 

have  Zoe.  I  cannot.  She  doesn't  belong  to  you  or 
me.  She  belongs  to  life.  She's  not  mine.  She  is 
only  my  success;  she — " 

' '  She— goes— home ! ' ' 

"No!" 

"Why  in  God's  name  did  you  get  me  on  here? 
You  don't  expect  to  see  me  stand  by  and  counte 
nance  your  craziness?" 

"Why!  Why!  I've  asked  it  ever  since  the  mo 
ment  I  sent  the  wire.  Why !  I  had  to  do  it  somehow 
— a  fear  of — something — war — lif e — death — but  you 
shall  not  have  her.  Not  unless  she  decides  it  that 
way.  No.  Never!" 

"I'm  a  slow  thinker!  And  slower  to  act.  That's 
been  my  trouble.  But  this  time  the  bit  is  between 
my  teeth.  I've  a  family  now  and  family  obligations. 
Don't  be  so  sure  yet  that  I'm  on  my  way  overseas. 
There  is  a  way  around  every  situation  if  you  look 
for  it  hard  enough.  My  place  is  here  now.  Home! 
My  daughter  goes  home!" 

She  could  see  in  profile  the  heavy  jaw  clamp  up 
ward,  and  more  and  more  that  wooden  stodginess 
became  terrible  to  her.  In  a  flash-back  she  could 
see  those  seventeen  years  of  beefsteak  suppers;  his 
temples  at  their  trick  of  working.  Seventeen  years 
all  cluttered  up  with  bed  casters,  bathtub  stoppers, 
and  poultry  wiring.  That  party  back  there  at 
Flora's.  The  lotto  and  tiddledywinks  tables  laid  out. 
Page  Avenue  on  a  summer's  day  with  the  venders 
hawking  down  it — ap-ples — twenty  cents  a  peck — 
ap-ples.  Zoe — caught ! 

She  closed  over  his  wrists  with  a  little  predatory  grip. 

"Albert,  don't  do  that!  Don't  take  her  back. 
She'll  claw  you  like  a  wild  eagle  in  a  cage — out  there. 
She  belongs  to  the  world.  In  the  fall  she  sings  for 


422  STAR  DUST 

Auchinloss.  It  may  lead  to  anything !  Albert — you 
ask  why  I  sent  for  you.  Let  her  be.  Let  her  stay 
here  with  Mrs.  Blair — a  friend — a  dear — good  friend 
of  mine.  Her  education —  Take  me,  Albert.  Take 
me  home — Albert." 

At  her  hand  on  his  wrist  something  raced  over  him 
like  the  lick  of  a  flame;  he  pressed  against  her  with 
the  entire  length  of  his  body  and  his  lips  were  moist. 

"Lilly,"  he  said,  very  darkly  red  and  trying 
to  clasp  her  about  the  waist,  "I'll  take  you!  I 
oughtn't,  but  I  will.  Come  back,  Lilly,  and  make  it 
up  to  me  for  all  these  years.  Being  near  you  makes 
me  forget  everything  except  that — you  are  near  me. 
I've  missed  you  all  these  years — I  guess — but  never 
so  much  as  this  minute.  You've  gotten  so  handsome 
with  the  years.  Something —  Come  home,  Lilly — 
make  it  up  to  me.  Give  me— your — your  lips!" 

She  kept  retreating  before  the  dark  red  and  the 
moist  lips  which  he  wet  more  and  more  with  his  tongue. 

"Will  you  leave  her  be— then— Albert ?     Here?" 

"Lilly — your  lips — give  me." 

"Will  you,  Albert— leave  her  here— Zoe?" 

She  could  feel  the  scald  of  his  breathing. 

"Yes — if  you  come." 

"You  promise?" 

"Yes,  Lilly.    Your  lips— let  me." 

Suddenly  he  had  her  to  him,  there  in  the  light 
darkness  of  the  deserted  square  of  reservoir,  kissing 
her  so  that  his  mouth  smeared  over  toward  her  ear. 

She  was  not  quick  enough  entirely  to  avert  her 
face,  and  in  the  embrace  his  Adam's  apple  was 
against  her  throat  so  that  she  could  feel  it  beat,  and 
with  her  nails  biting  into  her  palm  to  keep  her  from 
screaming,  she  was  shrieking  over  and  over  to  herself 
at  his  nearness:  "Ugh!  Ugh!  Ugh!" 


CHAPTER  X 

A  LBERT  did  not  sail. 

**  A  certain  depression  seemed  to  settle  over 
him  the  evening  following,  after  they  had  dined  at 
a  Broadway  restaurant  and  were  spending  the  interim 
before  theater  in  the  lobby  of  the  Hotel  Astor,  where 
Mrs.  Becker  never  tired  of  observing  and  commenting 
upon  the  transient  swirl  and  peacockery. 

"Look  at  that  tight  skirt,  will  you!  It's  a  shame 
for  any  self-respecting  woman  to  have  to  look  at, 
much  less  wear  it." 

"Tippy  dear,  not  so  loud." 

"Look  at  that  low-cut  back,  will  you!  And  white 
hair,  too.  I  wouldn't  live  in  this  town  if  you  gave 
it  to  me!  Sixty  cents  for  string  beans  the  menu 
read  to-night.  I  can  buy  a  bushel  at  home  for 
that.  If  I  had  been  alone  I  know  what  I  would 
have  done.  Walked  out.  It's  only  for  millionaires 
here.  The  rest  have  to  live  in  back  rooms  so  they 
can  put  everything  on  their  backs.  You  should 
thank  your  stars  you  have  a  home  to  go  to,  Lilly, 
instead  of  you  and  Zoe  crying  over  each  other  all 
day.  If  I  had  my  say  she  would  go,  too.  Education ! 
St.  Louis  education  is  good  enough  for  anybody. 
Ben,  I  want  you  to  look !  If  I  was  to  ask  you  to  buy 
me  a  chiffon  cape  like  that  you  would  drop  in  your 
tracks." 

"Now,  old  lady,  do  I  ever  refuse  you  anything?" 

"No,  because  I  never  ask  for  anything." 

"I  think  we  had  better  be  going,"  said  Lilly,  lean- 


424  STAR  DUST 

ing  forward  to  tilt  Zoe's  hat  farther  down  over  her 
face.  "I  don't  want  you  to  miss  the  first  act." 

There  was  to  be  a  box  for  "Who  Did  It?"  and  a 
visit  behind  scenes  between  acts. 

"I  want  to  get  a  look-in  on  what  goes  on  behind 
there,"  specified  Mrs.  Becker  through  a  sniff. 
"Fine  mess!" 

From  where  he  sat  with  crossed  knees  and  his 
nicely  polished  shoes  far  out  so  that  passers-by  were 
forced  to  a  small  detour,  Albert  looked  suddenly 
across  at  his  mother-in-law,  rather  scaredly  white. 

"Mother,"  he  said,  "I've  got  a  pain  in  my  chest." 

On  the  instant  her  rosiness  blanched. 

"Albert,  one  of  your  colds  coming  on?  They 
never  start  on  your  chest.  It's  influenza;  the  papers 
are  full  of  it.  They  say  next  winter  we're  going  to 
have  it  in  a  terrible  epidemic.  Albert,  what  hurts?" 

He  inserted  two  fingers  into  the  front  pleat  of  his 
shirt. 

"It  hurts  here,"  he  said. 

"Albert,"  cried  Mrs.  Becker,  instantly  taken  with 
panic,  "let  me  feel  if  you  have  any  fever!" 

"Now,  now,  Carrie,  don't  create  a  scene  here  in 
the  lobby.  You've  nursed  him  through  enough  colds 
not  to  be  alarmed." 

"But,  Ben,  in  his  chest!  It's  a  symptom,  I  tell  you; 
the  papers  are  full  of  it ! " 

"Nonsense,  Carrie!  It's  probably  a  little  indiges 
tion.  You  will  insist  upon  those  table  d'hdtes.  On 
the  way  to  the  theater  we'll  stop  in  at  a  drug  store." 

"Theater!  Don't  even  mention  the  word.  Come 
upstairs,  Albert.  Luckily  I  put  a  pair  of  your  flan 
nelette  pajamas  in  the  trunk.  Ben,  you  rush  over 
to  the  drug  store  for  some  camphorated  oil.  Albert, 
do  you  feel  achy?" 


STAR  DUST  425 

Lilly  laid  out  a  quietly  firm  hand  on  his  arm. 

11  Mamma,  please  let  Albert  get  a  word  in." 

* '  I  know  that  boy  like  a  book.    He  looks  feverish. ' ' 

" Albert,"  said  Lilly,  holding  to  the  sedative 
quality  in  her  voice,  "do  you  feel  ill?" 

"I've  a  pain  in  my  chest,"  he  persisted,  doggedly 
and  with  the  drawn  look  about  his  mouth  whitening. 

They  put  him  to  bed.  By  nine  o'clock  a  slight 
flush  lay  on  Albert's  cheek  and  he  kept  feeling  of  his 
brow. 

"I  think  I  have  fever,"  he  said  once,  always  in 
scared  white  manner.  * '  Look  in  the  paper  and  see  if 
dry  lips  is  one  of  the  symptoms." 

Then  Zoe  was  dispatched  home  and  the  house  phy 
sician  called  in,  Mrs.  Becker,  as  usual,  tempestuous 
with  instantaneous  hysteria  and  conjuring  to  Lilly 
another  sick  room  from  out  the  hinterland  of  her 
childhood. 

"Doctor,  is  it  the  Spanish  influenza?  Has  he 
fever?  He's  always  subject  to  colds,  Doctor.  He's 
not  as  strong  as  he  looks.  I've  sat  up  many  a  night 
with  his  quincy  sore  throats.  Many  is  the  time, 
before  we  got  the  auto,  that  I  rode  down  for  him  in 
the  street  car  with  his  rubbers,  if  a  rain  came  up. 
Doctor,  do  you  think  it  could  be  that  Spanish  in 
fluenza?  O  God!  if  he  should  take  sick  away  from 
home!  Our  doctor  at  home  understands  his  system. 
My  boy — my  son — " 

With  a  frozen  sense  of  her  alienism,  Lilly  sat,  as  it 
were,  outside  the  situation,  proffering  herself  almost 
with  a  sense  of  intrusion. 

The  doctor  would  not  pronounce,  but  left  with 
instructions  and  the  promise  of  a  midnight  return. 
Into  that  Mrs.  Becker  read  darkly. 

"He's  a  sick  man  or  one  of  these  busy  New  York 


426  STAR  DUST 

doctors  wouldn't  be  returning  again  to-night.  My 
boy  is  a  sick  man." 

Meanwhile  Albert  had  fallen  into  a  light  sleep. 
They  sat  beside  his  bedside  watching  his  lips  puff 
out,  sometimes  in  bubbles. 

The  silence  of  midnight  descended  over  the  tran 
sient  formality  of  the  hotel  room. 

Undoubtedly  Albert  had  a  fever  which  seemed  to 
be  rising.  He  moistened  his  lips  now  constantly  and 
threw  himself  about  beneath  the  coverings,  and  then 
Mrs.  Becker,  not  to  be  restrained,  would  lean  for 
ward  to  brush  backward  from  his  brow,  as  if  there 
were  hair. 

At  midnight  the  doctor  returned  and  at  one  o'clock 
Albert  was  removed  to  Murray  Hill  Hospital. 

He  was  ill  three  days,  slipping  off  almost  from  the 
beginning  into  a  state  of  coma  from  which  he  did 
not  emerge. 

With  a  celerity  that  was  presently  to  race  it 
through  the  country,  this  strange  malady  laid  low 
its  victim  with  what  might  have  been  pneumonia, 
except  for  certain  complications  that  baffled  and 
alarmed  an  already  thoroughly  aroused  medical 
world. 

The  second  day  a  sort  of  dark  rash  broke  out 
over  Albert's  chest,  so  that  his  nurses  entered  the 
room  in  gauze  masks,  and  finally,  in  spite  of  Lilly's 
protestations  and  Mrs.  Becker's  most  violent  hys 
terics,  no  admittance  to  the  sick  room  was  granted 
them. 

And  now  comes  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  Lilly  Penny 
which,  being  too  true  life,  is  not  sufficiently  true  to 
fiction. 

On  the  day  that  was  to  have  been  Zoe's  formal 
graduation  from  High  School,  so  that  the  pearl-em- 


STAR  DUST  427 

broidered  slippers  were  never  worn  and  her  diploma 
brought  home  to  her  by  a  classmate,  Albert  Penny 
died,  with  no  more  furor  than  he  had  lived. 

Stupor  enveloped  Lilly.  She  moved  through 
days  incredibly  crowded  with  detail,  and  yet,  some 
how,  so  withdrawn  into  the  very  nub  of  herself  that 
it  was  the  shell  of  her  seemed  to  compete  with  the 
passing  time.  Certainly  it  was  this  shell  of  her  fol 
lowed  Albert  in  that  strangest  of  little  processions, 
to  his  cremation. 

There  had  been  an  effort  to  travel  west  with  the 
remains,  but  quarantine  conditions  forbade,  and  it 
was  just  as  well  so. 

Four  times  on  that  ride  through  a  warm  summer 
rain  to  the  crematory  Mrs.  Becker  went  off  into 
light  faints,  sobbing  herself  back  into  consciousness. 
It  frightened  Lilly  to  look  at  her  father;  his  face  had 
dropped  into  hollows  and  the  roundness  of  his  back 
was  suddenly  a  decided  hump.  And  he  had  fallen 
into  a  silence.  A  sort  of  hollow  urn  of  it  that  not 
even  the  outbursts  of  his  wife  could  rouse  to  his 
usual  soothing  chirpings.  He  merely  sat  stroking 
her  hand  and  staring  into  a  silence  which  he  seemed 
to  see. 

A  very  quiet  and  very  frightened  Zoe  had  been 
packed  off  to  Ida  Blair's,  through  it  all  Lilly's  stu 
por  persisting. 

Mrs.  Becker's  state  became  cause  for  concern. 
Once  back  at  the  hotel,  with  Albert's  room  locked  off, 
and  once  more  thrown  open  to  the  impersonal  feet  of 
transiency,  she  would  only  moan  and  wind  her  hands 
and  go  off  into  the  light  states  of  unconsciousness. 

"I  haven't  my  son  any  more!  Why  did  we  come? 
It  might  not  have  happened  at  home.  Our  daughter 
wronged  him,  but,  thank  God,  we  tried  to  make  it  up 

28 


428  STAR  DUST 

to  him.  My  boy.  He  was  so  steady — so  careful. 
I  can't  realize  he's  gone — without  me.  The  way  he 
used  to  come  home.  Never  a  habit — evening  after 
evening  his  newspaper  and  bed.  Thank  God,  I 
don't  think  he  ever  missed  her  going  as  he  might 
have.  It  hurt  at  first.  He  wanted  to  resign  his 
Bible  class,  and  that  day  we  broke  up  the  house— he 
kept  twitching  with  his  eyes.  You  remember,  Ben. 
And  that  bed  caster.  Funny  to  have  twitched  over 
that.  It  seems  he  brought  it  home  the  night  she 
left — it  came  over  him  all  of  a  sudden,  it  wouldn't 
ever  have  to  be  fitted  in.  That's  it!  O  God!  all 
these  years  without  knowing  his  own  child.  He  was 
so  steady — a  good  boy  if  God  ever  grew  one.  Ben, 
Ben,  how  can  we  go  home  without  him?  How  can 
we  go  home  without  our  boy?" 

"Carrie,  it  is  God's  will." 

"It  is  nobody's  will.  God  couldn't  will  it  that 
way.  Just  as  he  had  got  a  little  happiness  in  his 
way.  To  think  he  was  willing  to  take  her  back.  I 
don't  care  for  myself,  we're  on  in  years,  Ben — we're 
done — and  now  we've  lost  our — all — nothing  to  live 
for—" 

"Mamma,  mamma,  don't  talk  that  way.  Let  me 
try  to  make  up  to  you  for — " 

"I  can't  face  going  home.  He  was  my  life,  that 
boy.  He  made  up  for  what  we  suffered  through  our 
own.  He  was  a  son  to  us.  I  can't  face  going  home 
without  him.  Albert — where  are  you?  Albert!" 

"Mamma,  mamma,  won't  you  let  me  try  to  make 
up,  dear,  for  what  I  have  failed  you?" 

"Albert — can't  you  hear  me — Albert — " 

"Carrie,  we've  got  our  daughter  back.  Isn't  that 
something  to  be — " 

"I  want  my  son,  I  tell  you." 


STAR  DUST  429 

"Mamma  darling,  you're  killing  me.  Let  me 
make  it  up  to  you — even  a  little — the — " 

"No,  no;  you're  not  a  daughter  to  me.  I  want 
my  son.  Our  way  was  his  way." 

"  Mamma,  please — take  me  home  in  his  place. 
I'll  make  it  up  to  you.  Let  me  go  back,  dear,  in 
Albert's  place.  I  want  to  pay  up — to  you.  I'm 
finished — here,  dear.  I'm  ready — ready — " 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Becker  seemed  to  experience  one 
of  her  cyclonic  shifts.  Tears  came  raining  down  her 
face,  her  sobbing  cleft  with  great  racking  gulps. 
Then  she  dropped  to  her  knees  beside  her  daughter, 
and,  before  Lilly  could  prevent,  reached  up  to  drag 
down  her  face  against  her  own  tear-drenched  one. 

"Don't  leave  us,  Lilly.  Don't  ever.  Come  home 
with  us.  We're  getting  old,  Lilly.  Don't  ever  leave 
us,  me  and  papa.  Promise  me,  Lilly.  Promise." 

"Of  course  I  promise,  mamma  darling.  Of  course 
I  promise." 


CHAPTER  XI 

FOR  a  full  week  after  Albert's  strangely  curtailed 
obsequies,  a  gray  blanket  of  v/oolly  humidity 
hung  with  July  unseemliness  over  the  city  in  a  cling 
ing  fog  that  feathered  the  throat. 

The  morning  that  Lilly  returned  to  the  office 
electric  lights  were  burning  and  electric  fans  were 
whirring  into  it. 

The  unassailed  normality  of  the  machine  whose 
functioning  depended  upon  its  parts!  How  easily 
even  the  most  component  of  those  parts  could  be 
replaced!  The  rows  of  stenographers,  in  her  but 
two  weeks'  absence,  new  faces  among  them,  out 
lined  against  windows  of  space  and  East  River. 
The  hinged  little  mahogany  gates  swinging  to  their 
goings  and  comings.  Her  own  office  with  its  glazed 
pane  of  door  glass  and  outlook  over  city  roofs  and 
tug-specked  band  of  river. 

It  was  as  if  the  tide  of  life  were  once  more  licking 
at  her  feet.  She  hung  up  her  hat,  patting  at  her 
hair  in  the  little  square  of  mirror  above  the  stationary 
washstand,  looking  back  at  herself  out  of  eyes  a  bit 
dreggy  with  tiredness,  but  her  skin  so  deep  in  its 
whiteness  that  it  was  almost  as  if  its  creamy  quality 
had  congealed  of  mere  richness. 

She  rubbed  her  cheeks  to  pinken  and  quicken 
them,  and  rang  for  an  office  boy,  turning  her  back 
on  the  pile  of  letters  and  her  reports  on  the  desk 
and  her  eagerness  to  be  at  them. 

"Ask  Mr.  Bruce  Visigoth  if  he  can  see  me." 


STAR  DUST  431 

The  message  came  back  on  the  instant.  He  could. 
She  turned  the  knob  to  his  office  door  so  slowly 
that  she  saved  the  slightest  squeak,  and  stood  there 
with  her  silhouette  against  the  ground  glass  for  a 
long  moment.  When  she  did  enter,  from  the  center 
of  the  room  where  he  had  been  watching  her  silhou 
ette  against  the  pane,  Bruce  advanced  to  meet  her. 

He  took  her  hand  and  on  the  instant  she  felt  her 
eyes  fill,  burningly. 

He  was  in  summer  and  office  neglig6e,  an  unlined 
blue-serge  coat,  a  white-silk  shirt  which  lay  lightly 
to  his  body  flexuosity,  and  above  the  soft  collar  he 
had  taken  on  enough  outdoor  tan  to  make  his  smile 
whiter.  She  could  have  bitten  her  lips  for  their 
trembling,  and  tried  to  smile  with  her  tortured  eyes. 

"Lilly,"  he  said,  topping  her  hand  with  his,  "why 
didn't  you  let  me  know  sooner?  Your  letter  an  hour 
ago  came  out  of  a  clear  sky.  You  see,  I  didn't  even 
know  he — he  was  here." 

"It  was  all  so — so  quick!" 

"Jove!  I  don't  seem  to  take  it  in  yet." 

"Nor  I,"  she  said,  quiescently  and  letting  him 
lead  her  to  a  chair.  "He —  You  see,  he  was  only  ill 
three  days." 

"There  doesn't  seem  much  for  me  to  say,  does 
there,  Lilly?" 

"No,"  she  said,  "that's  it,  there's  nothing  to  say." 

"I  can't  bear  to  think  of  your  having  been  exposed 
to  it." 

"That  was  the  least.  He  died— afraid.  That  is 
so  terrible  to  me,  somehow.  I  wouldn't  mind  all  of 
the  horrible  rest  if  only  he  hadn't  died — afraid.  I 
wonder  if  you  know  what  I  mean.  He  lived  so — so 
meekly  to  have  died — that  way.  Afraid." 

' '  Yes, ' '  he  said,  ' '  I  think  I  do  know. ' '    He  wanted 


432  STAR  DUST 

to  keep  his  gaze  away  from  her  and  to  keep  it  cool, 
but  somehow  each  time  their  eyes  met  a  flame  leaped 
up  out  of  embers,  a  fiery  new  consciousness  that 
kept  dancing. 

' '  He  and — and  my  parents — you  see,  they —  Well, 
I  told  you  everything  in  the  letter." 

"Are  your  parents  returning  home?" 

"Yes.  That's  what  I've  come  to  say.  You  see — 
they — we — we've  decided  to  remainhere  two  months. 
Until  September — up  in  my  little  apartment,  all  of 
us.  In  September  Zoe  is  to  have  her  audition  with 
Auchinloss.  So  much  depends  on  that.  We've  such 
hopes,  her  teacher  and  I.  She's  pure  lyric  soprano. 
We  think  grand-opera  brand.  And  now  with  the 
war  on,  more  and  more  the  American  girl  is  getting 
her  chance.  That's  why  my  parents  have  finally 
consented  to  wait  here  with  me  until  then.  After 
that,  Zoe  is  to  stay  with  Ida  Blair  and  we  three — 
my  parents  and  I — are  going  home — together. 
That  is  what  I  have  come  to  tell  you.  I'll  be  giving 
up  my  work  with  you  in — September.  I'm  going 
home — with  them." 

He  regarded  her,  his  flush  going  down  perceptibly. 

"You're  fooling." 

"No,"  she  said,  trying  to  smile.  "I  suppose  it's 
about  the  most  solemn  job  I  have  left  to  do  in  life — 
going  home." 

"Why,  you — you  can't  go  back  there." 

"I  can,"  she  said,  her  voice  held  calm. 

"I — we  can't  let  you  go." 

"Why?    Zoe — my  big  job's  done." 

"Lilly,  I  tell  you  we  need  you  here  more  than 
ever.  My  brother  arrives  this  morning  from  Seattle. 
We've  completed  the  cross-country  chain.  I'm  free 
now  to  branch  out.  I'm  counting  on  you.  I'm  full 


STAR  DUST  433 

of  an  idea  for  that  community  opera  scheme  and  I'm 
ready  to  do  the  play  from  the  Russian  on  your  say- 
so.  Lilly — you  cannot  go  now — " 

"I  can — must,"  she  said,  scraping  back  her  chair. 
' '  You  must  work  out  your  dreams — alone — with  some 
one  else.  I — must — go."  And  then  withdrawing  from 
what  she  saw:  "No!  No!  Bruce!  No!  No!" 

But  just  the  same  they  were  in  each  other's  arms 
with  the  irresistibility  of  tide  for  moon  and  moon 
for  tide.  Press  him  back  with  her  palms  as  she  would 
when  his  lips  found  hers,  it  was  as  if  something  etheric 
had  flowed  into  her  brain.  She  wanted  to  resist  him 
and  instead  her  hands  met  in  a  clasp  about  his  neck. 
"No,  no."  And  yet  as  he  kissed  her  eyelids  and 
down  against  the  satinness  of  her  hair,  it  seemed  to 
her  that  toward  this  moment  all  the  poor  blind  years 
had  been  directed. 

"Lilly— darling." 

She  tried  to  shake  off  her  enchantment. 

"You  hurt!" 

"I  want  to." 

"My— love." 

"My  love." 

"So  this— this  is  it?" 

"What?" 

"Love." 

"Love.    Love." 

"How  beautiful— sex." 

"I  want  to  kiss  those  stars  out  of  your  eyes.  I 
want  to  wind  you  in  moonlight." 

"Bruce,  I  think  I  must  be  mad.  Crazily — 
deliciously  mad." 

"Me  too.  I'm  as  deliciously,  as  crazily  mad  as 
any  young  Leander.  I  want  to  swim  a  thousand 
Hellesponts  for  you.  I  want — " 


434  STAR   DUST 

"No — nc — no,  Bruce,  you  don't  understand — 
my  love — " 

"I  do  understand.  That  I  have  you  now  to  love 
and  adore,  to  marry — " 

The  door  opened  then,  quite  abruptly.  It  was 
Robert  Visigoth.  He  had  a  straw  hat  in  one  hand 
and  an  alligator  traveling  bag  in  the  other.  The 
latter  he  set  down  rather  abruptly. 

So  instantaneous  was  their  springing  apart  and  so 
ready  the  mind  to  believe  what  the  heart  denied, 
that  it  was  almost  conceivable  that  he  had  not  seen. 
There  was  not  even  a  pause,  and  through  the  per 
functory  greetings  of  these  two  men  of  strangest 
relation,  Lilly  found  herself  somehow  back  at  her 
desk,  little  prickles  out  all  over  her  body  and  par 
ticularly  against  her  face,  like  the  bite  of  sleet,  some 
thing  like  this  running  behind  her  lips : 

"Please,  God,  don't  let  him  tell.  He  promised! 
Please!  God,  I'll  never  give  in  again.  Bruce — 
my  darling — don't  let  him  tell  you.  He  promised 
he  wouldn't.  Don't  tell  him,  Robert.  Bruce,  don't 
let  him.  Please,  God — don't  let  him." 

After  a  while,  burning  with  the  fever  in  her  blood, 
she  plunged,  for  the  sedative  of  it,  into  the  work 
before  her.  The  first  of  a  stack  of  reports  on  her  desk 
was  from  the  Adelphi  Theater,  Akron,  Ohio. 

"Three  Melodious  Sisters."  12    minutes.  Well      received. 

Wardrobe  worn. 
"Whistling  Bicyclers."  14  minutes.   Skillful.  Comedy  weak. 

"Please,  God— don't  let  him—" 

"  Shenck  and  Bent."  9  minutes.     3  laughs. 

"  Sylvia  King  &  Co."  9    minutes.         Weak    patter     but 

finished  strong. 
"Musical  Gypsies."  10  minutes.     Fair.     Good    opening 

number. 


STAR  DUST  435 

"Please,  God,  don't  let  him  tell."'  , 

After  what  might  have  been  minutes  or  hours, 
then,  the  door  opened  and  without  preamble  Robert 
Visigoth  walked  in,  and  in  the  wide-kneed  fashion 
forced  upon  him  by  corpulency  seated  himself  beside 
her  desk. 

"How  long  has  this  thing  been  going  on?"  he  said, 
looking  at  her  from  under  beetling  brows  that  had 
grown  bushy  with  the  years.  Time  had  done  just 
that  to  Robert  Visigoth.  Beetled  him.  His  years 
overhung  him.  He  carried  them  massively.  It  was 
not  so  much  that  he  had  lost  his  waistline,  but  he 
had  settled  into  himself.  That  was  it!  Robert 
Visigoth  had  settled  rather  appallingly  into  himself. 

For  a  second  Lilly's  eyes  moved  from  the  two 
fifty-cent  cigars  protruding  from  his  waistcoat 
pocket  to  a  lodge  button  at  his  lapel,  and  then, 
finally  trapped,  met  his. 

4 'How  long?  I  said." 

"You've  told  him?"  she  asked,  leaning  forward  to 
hear  through  the  buzzing  in  her  ears. 

"Whether  I  do  or  not  depends  upon  you." 

She  tried  not  to  let  him  see  how  the  room  was 
rocking  around  and  around,  how  suddenly  the  buzz 
ing  had  lifted  until  she  felt  light-headed.  She  could 
have  shouted,  danced,  wept,  or  fainted  her  relief. 
Nothing  mattered,  not  even  the  squatty  person 
sitting  there  with  little  diabetic  puffs  beneath  his 
eyes. 

"How  long  has  this  thing  been  going  on?"  he  re 
peated,  his  voice  a  rising  gale. 

"Are  you  your  brother's  keeper?" 

"From  your  kind,  yes." 

"There  has  been  nothing  between  us." 

"That's  a  lie." 


436  STAR  DUST 

Through  the  scorch  of  her  humiliation  it  was  a 
second  before  she  could  command  her  lips. 

''I  swear  to  God." 

"Bah!"  he  almost  spat  out,  ''after  what  I  walked 
in  on!" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  biting  off  the  words  with  a  clip, 
"after  what  you  walked  in  on." 

He  leaned  forward  with  a  thrust  of  face  that  was 
unpleasantly  close. 

"All  I  have  to  say  is,  hands  off  there." 

"There  has  been  nothing  between  us.  I  tell  you 
it's  true." 

"I'm  not  concerned  whether  it  is  or  not.  What 
has  been  has  been.  But  now,  hands  off.  You  can't 
land  my  brother.  I  heard  the  word.  Marry.  The 
cheek — you — my  brother!  You  must  be  crazy." 

"You're  wrong.  You're  wrong,"  she  managed  to 
insist,  her  throat  rising  and  falling  like  a  sea. 

"My  eyes  aren't  wrong.  They  saw  what  I  stum 
bled  in  on." 

"I  know.  I  know.  It's  difficult — impossible  to 
explain  away  an — an  occurrence  like  that.  How  well 
I  know  the  futility  of  trying  to  convince  your  kind 
of  man  that  there  are  more  than  two  kinds  of  women 
in  the  world.  Good  and  bad.  The  woman  you  marry 
and  the  woman  you  ruin.  I'm  bad.  Have  it  your 
way.  Bad.  Bad.  Bad.  But  for  what  was  your 
sin  as  much  as  mine  you  are  free  in  your  man-made 
society  to  go  your  way,  fulfilling  your  life,  and  then 
you  dare  to  come  here  and  sit  judgment  on  my  ful 
filling  mine.  When  are  women  going  to  venture  from 
behind  the  man-made  throne  to  sit  beside,  and  make 
you  men  move  over  ? ' ' 

"I'm  not  here  to  discuss  the  double  code  with  you. 
I  don't  know  and  don't  care  how  you  have  lived 


STAR  DUST  437 

since.  It  is  not  my  business.  For  sixteen  years  you 
have  given  this  firm  fine  satisfaction  for  which  we,  in 
turn,  have  tried  to  express  our  appreciation.  You 
know  that.  We  know  that.  Your  morals  are  none 
of  my  business  except  when  they  touch  me!  A 
man's  a  man.  I  don't  know  how  you've  lived.  For 
my  part,  I  think  you've  gone  pretty  straight,  but 
that  doesn't  change  matters.  I  know  what  I  know, 
and  a  man's  a  man.  What  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it  ?  You  know,  too,  that  there  is  no  love  lost  between 
me  and  my  brother  in  the  little  things.  We  go  our 
ways.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  big — he's  my 
brother.  Blood.  Get  me?  Whatever  I  am  can't 
change  me  here  inside.  He's  my  brother.  ^You're 
—you!" 

"  You're  right.  I  wouldn't.  I  couldn't.  I  must 
have  been  mad — this  morning.  I — somehow — it  got 
all  beyond  me  in  a  moment.  I  swear  to  you  for  the 
first  time!  Do  you  think  I'd  muss  up  one  hour  of 
his  life?  Even  if  I  dared?  Even  if  you  were  to  come 
to  me,  on  your  knees,  begging  me  to — to — marry 
him?  To  begin  with,  I'm  older — only  a  year  in  time, 
it's  true,  but  he — he's  just  beginning.  I'm  beginning 
over.  What  is  my  life  compared  to  his?  He's  on 
the  brink  of  a  thousand  realizations.  And  I — oh,  I'm 
not  whining.  I'd  do  it  all  over  again,  loathing  you 
as  you  must  know  I  loathed  you — that  night.  But 
my  child  got  her  chance.  You  sold  it  to  me  and  I 
paid  for  it  in  the  basest  coin  of  the  realm.  But  I'd 
do  it  again — knowing  what  I  know  now,  I'd  do  it 
again.  You  hear!  Do  you  hear!" 

"  That's  past  now—" 

"No.  For  you,  yes,  but  I'm  still  paying.  Paying 
at  this  moment  with  my — my  heart's  blood.  But  if 
I  hadn't  done  it — gone  with  you — something  would 


438  STAR  DUST 

have  been  lost  that  night  that  was  worth  every  cent 
I  paid.  They'd  have  got  her  back.  I  don't  care. 
I've  won.  I've  won  if  I've  lost." 

She  was  on  her  feet  now,  her  eyes,  like  blue  wells 
that  were  filling  with  ink,  plunging  beyond  his  with 
a  Testament  defiance  that  seemed  to  shout,  "I  am 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made." 

"Yes,  I  love  him.  You  can't  take  that  from  me. 
That  is  why  he  is  so  safe  from  me.  I  love  him  too 
much  for  him  to  know.  And  yet  I  think — I  believe — 
I  know  that  even  if  he  did  know,  in  the  end  it 
wouldn't  matter — " 

"You  must  be  crazy.  Once  let  your  idealist  wake 
up  and  there  is  no  more  dreaming  for  him." 

' '  He  mustn ' t  ever  wake  up — for  his  sake !  Promise. 
Promise  me  that  you  won't  ever  wake  him!" 

"Whether  I  do  or  not  is  up  to  you." 

"What  do  you  want?"  she  said,  tiredly. 

"I  suppose  the  black  and  white  of  it  is  that  you 
must  quit." 

"That  is  easy.  I'm  resigning  anyway  the  fifteenth 
of  September  to  go  West  to  live." 

He  took  on  the  half-conciliatory  graciousness  of 
one  who  has  gained  his  advantage  with  unsuspected 
ease. 

"I'd  give  a  great  deal  not  to  have  had  this 
happen,  but,  after  all,  a  man  is  a  man  and  life  is 
life." 

She  let  her  gaze  bore  into  his  like  gimlets  burning 
for  center. 

"I  think  youVe  explained  that  before." 

He  began  to  back  out  before  her  immobility. 

"I  am  remaining  East  two  months.  I  hope  your 
resignation  will  allow  us  that  much  time  to  attempt 
to  fill  your  place." 


STAR  DUST  439 

"I  leave  that  to  you.  It  can  be  either  immediate 
or  take  effect  in  September." 

"By  all  means  the  latter.  Will  you — can  you  be 
lieve  me  when  I  say  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do — 
letters — an  opening  with  a  Western  firm— 

"Please,"  she  said,  turning  him  a  shoulder  in  high 
distaste. 

"I  have  your  word — then?" 

"My  word,"  she  said,  looking  past  his  hand  toward 
the  door. 

He  backed  out  in  the  somewhat  ludicrous  crab 
fashion  and  then  she  sat  down,  swinging  around  on 
her  swivel  chair  toward  the  desk.  The  stack  of  re 
ports  lay  facing  her.  She  caught  up  the  ijext  in 
order. 

People's  Playhouse.    Tulsa,  Oklahoma. 

For  the  next  half  hour  she  must  have  sat  there 
trying  to  co-ordinate  out  of  chaos  by  staring  at  the 
heading  and  repeating  over  and  over  again :  "People's 
Playhouse.  Tulsa,  Oklahoma.  People's  Playhouse. 
Tulsa,  Oklahoma." 

Whistles  were  blasting  through  the  noonday  fog 
when  Bruce  finally  and  without  preamble  burst  into 
her  office. 

It  struck  her  even  on  the  gale  of  his  entrance  how 
young  he  was  that  his  hair  should  show  the  nervous 
plowing  of  five  fingers,  and  how  sensitive  his  profile 
and  ready  to  flare  at  the  nostrils.  His  tie,  too,  burnt 
orange,  from  a  soft  collar  and  badly  knotted !  She 
wanted  to  jerk  up  his  chin  and  putter  at  remaking 
the  four-in-hand. 

1 '  Lilly — sweetheart — ' ' 

She  sat  regarding  him  over  the  top  of  People's 
Playhouse,  Tulsa,  Oklahoma. 


440  STAR  DUST 

"Sweetheart,  let  us  call  it  a  day.  I  want  to  drive 
you  out  to  Tarrytown  to — " 

"Don't,"  she  said,  frowning. 

"Don't  what?"  Her  immobility  an  ineffectual 
stop  to  his  exuberance. 

"Come  now,"  wanting  to  draw  her  from  her  chair 
by  the  two  hands,  swinging  them  wide  and  then  to 
gether;  "don't  let  his  nibs  bouncing  in  that  way 
throw  a  damper.  We  were  too  quick  for  him,  any 
way.  Don't  believe  he  saw  a  thing.  And  what  if 
he  did?  He's  going  to  know  it  anyhow,  and  pretty 
quick,  too.  I  want  to  shout  it  from  the  housetops. 
I  want  to  megaphone  it  up  to  the  stars.  Lilly — 
Lilly-mine !  Sweetheart ! ' ' 

She*crowded  back  into  the  chair. 

"How  dared  you!" 

He  fell  back  with  his  gesture  still  wide. 

"Why — what?  Dared  what?  Oh,  come  now, 
sweetheart,  I  could  wager  he  didn't  see,  and  suppose 
he  did?  We've  nothing  to  conceal.  I'm  for  telling 
him  to-day!" 

"No.  No.  No.  You  played  unfair.  You  took 
me — unawares.  You  misunderstood  me  horribly — 
most  horribly." 

"You  mean—" 

"Why,  you — you  boy!  What  has  happened  cannot 
make"  any  difference  between  you  and  me.  It  was 
outrageous  of  you — silly  boy  you — to — to  take  ad 
vantage.  After  all  that  has  passed — all  these  years — 
it  is  unthinkable  that  you  didn't  understand.  Why, 
you — you  boy!11 

She  saw  his  jaw  fall  and  the  sense  of  his  ridiculous 
ness  set  in. 

' '  What  has  merely  been  absurd  all  along  you  have 
suddenly  made  intolerant.  You  make  more  impera- 


STAR  DUST  44i 

tive  my  resignation.  You  must  understand — Mr. 
Visigoth — under  what  conditions  I  will  consent  to 
remain  here  these  few  weeks." 

The  words  were  so  stilted  that  she  had  the  sensa 
tion  of  throwing  metal  disks  on  a  stone  floor  and 
waiting  for  their  tinny  clatter.  She  could  see  the 
high  red  drain  out  of  his  face  and  then  rush  up  again 
as  if  he  had  been  slapped. 

"Lilly,  for  God's  sake,  you — you  cannot  be 
serious!" 

"No  mock  heroics — please." 

His  ears  tipped  with  flame;  he  straightened  back 
from  her. 

"No  more  mock  heroics,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  sud 
denly  quieted  down  like  vichy  gone  stale.  "Forgive 
an  old — fool — a  young — fool — and  forget  it.  Thank 
you  for  jerking  me  up." 

He  raised  her  limp  hand,  bowing  over  it  until  his 
lips  hovered  but  did  not  touch. 

"My  solemn  word  on  it  this  time — no  more — mock 
— heroics."  And  still  Lilly,  on  the  click  of  the  door 
after  him,  could  not  clear  her  brain  of  the  running 
threnody  of  nonsense : 

People's  Playhouse.  Tulsa,  Oklahoma.  People's 
Playhouse.  Tulsa,  Oklahoma. 


CHAPTER  XII 

rPIME  flies  or  does  not,  according  to  the  eyes  of  the 
•*•  beholder.  As  the  days  began  to  lengthen  into 
the  longest  spokes  of  the  cycle,  and  parlors  and  maga 
zines  to  don  summer  covers,  it  seemed  to  Lilly  that 
somewhere  an  interim  too  subtle  for  mortal  eyes 
must  have  occurred,  because  suddenly  there  came  a 
very  torrid  day  in  September,  the  fourteenth,  to  be 
exact,  when  the  little  apartment  in  West  End 
Avenue  stood  denuded,  stripped  to  a  few  huddled 
trunks,  and  Zoe's  dressing  table,  chair,  piano,  and 
desk  ready  to  be  carted  out  to  the  little  sea-view 
room  that  awaited  her  in  Ida  Blair's  Long  Island 
bungalow. 

They  were  a  group  diverse  of  emotion  and  perilous 
to  one  another's  nerves  this  last  morning. 

MRS.  BECKER:  "I  think  I'd  better  write  my  girl 
another  postal  to  be  sure  and  have  supper  ready 
when  we  get  home  Thursday  night.  There  is  some 
canned  salmon  in  the  grocery  closet,  I  forgot  to  men 
tion,  and  she  can  borrow  a  few  potatoes  from  the 
Shriners  for  frying,  until  I  get  a  chance  to  lay  in 
supplies  when  I  get  home.  Poor  Albert!  How  he 
loved  creamed  salmon  and  fried  potatoes !  Ben,  help 
me  to  realize  what  has  happened.  O  God,  I — " 

MR.  BECKER:  "Now,  Carrie." 

MRS.  BECKER:  "The  Shriners  are  nice  neighbors, 
Lilly.  They  are  the  only  ones  besides  us  on  the  block 
who  stuck  after  the  street  began  to  go  down.  You'll 
like  Edna  Shriner.  You  remember  her?  Pock- 


STAR  DUST  443 

marked.  She  used  to  be  in  your  dancing -school 
class.  She  never  married,  but  how  she  keeps  that 
little  home  for  her  old  father!  Kitchen  floor!  You 
could  eat  off  it.  And  as  handy  a  body  with  the  needle 
as  ever  lived.  Her  French  knots.  The  guest-towels 
that  girl  has  French-knotted." 

LILLY  (to  herself):  "Salmon  and  fried  potatoes. 
Page  Avenue.  Shriners.  Funny ! — O  God ! — Why — 
Oh!— Oh!— Funny!— " 

ZOE:   "Lilly,  feel  my  heart,  how  it  beats." 

It  was  as  if  Lilly  could  not  take  her  eyes  from  off 
her  daughter. 

"Remember  what  Triest  said,  dearest,  let  your 
nerves  be  so  many  violin  strings,  tightening  but  not 
quivering." 

"It's  your  going,  Lilly — I — I  can't  seem  quite  to 
grasp  it.  You  will  come  back  to  me  soon — in  two 
months — one —  I  couldn't  stand  it  longer!" 

"Yes,  and,  Zoe,  you  will  write  every  day.  Every 
little  single  thing.  Your  work — your  life — your 
friends — every  tiny  success — " 

"Lilly,  Lilly — don't  go!  It's  madness.  Stay, 
darling.  I  feel  like  a  pig — all  that  money — his 
fortune.  If  you  are  not  entitled  to  touch  it,  I  am 
not—" 

"You  are  his  child  and  the  only  wrong  you  ever 
did  him  was  through  me." 

"Lilly— don't  go,  darling—" 

"Zoe,  don't  tear  me  to  pieces." 

"I'll  work,  darling,  as  I've  never  worked  before." 

"Zoe,  Zoe,  go  straight  to  your  mark." 

"I — I  can't  realize  it,  Lilly.  To-day!  He'sr going 
to  hear  me  to-day — this  very  afternoon.  I — I  feel 
as  nervous  at  the  prospect  of  singing  before  you  as 

before  him.    I — I  think  I'm  the  luckiest  girl  in  the 
29 


444  STAR  DUST 

world.  Lilly,  sometimes  I — I — think  life  has — has 
sort  of  cleared  the  way  for  me  to  walk  in  its  lovely 
places — you  have  cleared  the  way.  But  what — what 
if  he  doesn't  think  I've  the  voice  maestro  thinks  I 
have?  I  couldn't  stand  that,  Lilly — the  way  you 
stood  it." 

"But  he  will,"  said  Lilly,  a  memory  shaping  itself. 
"Remember  your  power  begins  where  mine  left  off. 
You  heard  Du  Gass  the  year  before  she  died,  but  you 
were  too  young  to  remember.  Your  voice  is  so  much 
— so  infinitely  bigger,  Zoe,  and  your  knowledge  and 
defiance  of  life  and  of  the  Auchinlosses — makes  me 
so  unafraid  for  you — " 

"Kiss  me,  Lilly.  I'm  frightened — not  of  Auchin- 
loss — or  life — but  of —  Oh,  I  don't  know — fright 
ened  of  silliness,  I  guess." 

"I'm  not." 

"But  you're  trembling." 

"Of  hope." 

At  eleven  Lilly  went  down  to  her  office.  Leon 
Greenberg  already  had  her  desk.  It  was  largely  a 
matter  now  of  sliding  in  the  new  prop  before  sliding 
out  the  old. 

There  were  several  farewell  offerings  from  various 
of  the  older  girls.  The  immemorial  trifles  that 
women  exchange.  A  bottle  of  eau  de  cologne.  The 
inevitable  six  handkerchiefs.  A  silver  bodkin  for 
running  ribbon  through  lingerie.  And  from  the  book 
ing  department,  a  silk  umbrella  suitably  engraved. 
She  cried  a  little. 

By  noon  the  top  of  her  desk  was  bare  and  the 
drawers  empty. 

She  sat  looking  out  over  the  waves  of  roofs  of  a 
city  that  had  beaten  her  back  at  every  turn,  lashed 
her,  and  yet  with  the  mysterious  counterflow  of 


STAR  DUST  445 

oceans  had  carried  her  out  a  foot  for  every  ten  it 
flung  her  back. 

She  felt  full  of  sobs,  but  quiet.  Strangely  quiet, 
as  if  the  champing  machinery  of  her  life  had  stopped 
suddenly,  leaving  an  hiatus  that  made  her  heart  ache 
of  passivity. 

At  two  o'clock,  by  appointment,  came  Zoe  .  .  .  like 
a  blaze  of  light.  Her  eyes  with  her  mother's  trick  of 
iris,  full  of  inner  glow,  and  her  blond  hair  so  daringly 
boxed,  set  off  with  a  droop  of  tam-o'-shanter. 

There  had  been  a  new  frock  of  heavy  white 
cr£pe  with  a  wide  white  hat  for  this  occasion. 
Instead,  with  last-moment  decision,  she  had  come 
in  one  of  the  straight  blue  frocks,  the  wide  patent- 
leather  belt,  a  knot  of  orange  and  blue  ribbon, 
representing  her  active  membership  in  a  local 
canteen  service,  at  her  throat.  She  came  glowing 
through  the  daring  simplicity,  flamboyantly  and  to 
the  nth  power  of  Lilly's  slower  personality,  her 
mother's  child. 

"  Hurry,  darling,  I've  a  taxi  waiting.  We're  to 
meet  maestro  at  the  Opera  House." 

"Zoe,  I'm  glad  you  wore  this  instead.  Did  your 
grandmother  feel  badly  that  you  didn't  wear  the  one 
she  gave  you?" 

"I  wasn't  myself  in  it.    No — room." 

In  the  corridor,  going  out,  Bruce  stepped  suddenly 
out  of  his  office  into  their  path. 

Zoe's  hand  had  shot  out. 

"Hello,  you!"  she  said. 

He  looked  at  her  through  a  slow  smile. 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged!  The  youngster!  Good 
Lord!  What  have  they  done!  Who  elongated  you? 
Where  are  the  knee  dresses  and  the  corkscrews?" 

She  withdrew  a  highly  haughty  hand. 


446  STAR  DUST 

' '  You  poor,  misguided  Rip  Van  Winkle.  When  did 
you  return  from  the  Catskills?" 

4 'When  did  it  happen?"  he  asked  Lilly,  trying  to 
keep  his  eyes  from  crinkling. 

It  was  the  first  time  in  this  last  brace  of  weeks  that 
there  had  been  more  than  the  merest  perfunctory 
word  between  them,  and  she  tried  to  thaw  her  cold 
lips  into  a  smile. 

"You  forget  that  you  haven't  seen  her  since  last 
Christmas.  Six  inches  more  of  skirt  and  a  few 
hairpins  did  it." 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged?"  he  kept  reiterating.  "Zoe 
grown  up!" 

"Is  it  true  you  are  going  to  try  for  the  aviation? 
Ida  Blair  says  you  are." 

"Looks  that  way." 

"You're  too  old." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  have  to  come  down  to  earth. 
You  and  your  mother  have  different  ideas  regarding 
my  age.  I'm  rather  dizzy  about  it  this  minute,  my 
self.  Either  time  is  putting  one  over  on  me  or  you 
have  caught  up.  By  Jove!  that's  it!  You've  caught 
up !  You're  immense ! ' ' 

She  was  suddenly,  and  to  Lilly's  amazement, 
a  creature  of  flashes  and  quirks,  of  self  and  sex 
consciousness. 

"Don't  like  to  be — immense!" 

"Gorgeous,  then." 

"Better." 

"Don't  go.    Let  me  look  at  you.*' 

' '  Come  with  us.    Dare  you. ' ' 

"Zoe!" 

"Where?" 

"I'm  singing  this  afternoon  for  Auchinloss.  My 
audition  at  the  Opera  House." 


STAR  DUST  447 

''The  deuce  you  say!" 

"I've  a  cab  waiting,"  she  said,  challenging  him 
with  a  flash  of  eyes  to  their  corners. 

"Wait,"  he  said,  darting  into  his  office. 

"Zoe,  how  dared  you?" 

"Lilly — he's  thrilling!  I  want  him  along;  I  feel 
keyed  up  now.  The  way  I  want  to  feel !  Edgy!" 

Before  her  persistently  cold  lips  would  reply  he 
rejoined  them  and  presently  they  were  all  three  in 
the  cab. 

His  contemplation  of  Zoe  became  a  stare. 

"So  the  little  Zoe  grew  up." 

"I'm  eighteen.  You  used  to  be  old  enough  to  be 
my  father.  Not  any  more.  Now  you  are  old  enough 
to  be  my — anything." 

"Zoe!" 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said.    "Fact." 

Suddenly  her  nervousness  came  flowing  back  over 
her. 

"Lilly,  look  at  me  every  second  while  I'm  singing, 
darling.  You  too,"  leaning  toward  him  and  placing 
cold  fingers  on  each  of  their  wrists. 

"Delightful  and  easy  task." 

She  made  him  a  moue,  prettily  pouty. 

"You'll  be  sorry,  when  I'm  famous,  that  you 
didn't  take  me  seriously." 

"How  can  I  take  you  at  all  when  you've  taken  me 
off  my  feet?" 

"You've  never  heard  me  sing,  have  you?" 

"No." 

"Wait." 

"I  palpitate." 

"I'm  going  to  be  all  alone  now,  you  know," 
she  said,  looking  at  him  with  her  brilliant  eyes 
filling. 


448  STAR  DUST 

"More's  the  pity,"  he  said,  feeling  rather  than 
seeing  the  downward  brush  of  Lilly's  lashes. 

"I'll  be  out  at  Ida  Blair's  until— for  a  while." 

"May  I  come  out  and  play  with  you,  now  that  you 
are  caught  up  and  I  can  be  your — anything?" 

"You  may." 

Laughter. 

With  the  stopping  of  the  cab  such  a  javelin  of 
nervousness  shot  through  Lilly  that  it  was  as  if  it 
had  pierced  her  heart. 

A  lovely  pallor  was  out  over  Zoe,  enlarging  the  dark 
pools  of  her  eyes. 

"Sit  out  in  the  house,  center  aisle,  and  look  at  me, 
dears — so  I  can  feel  you  there — " 

To  the  magic  of  a  bit  of  cardboard  Lilly  and  Bruce 
were  in  the  vast  fantastic  hinterland  of  the  Opera 
House,  and,  stumbling  through  various  degrees  of 
blackness,  were  presently  down  in  the  colossal  maw 
of  the  auditorium,  finding  out  seats  in  the  great 
pit  of  darkness. 

They  sat  in  silence,  except  that  for  Lilly  the  beating 
of  her  heart  seemed  to  record  like  a  clapper  against 
her  brain. 

"Don't  be  nervous,"  he  said  once. 

"I'm  not,"  she  lied. 

There  was  a  bunch  light  on  the  stage,  a  dirty  back 
drop  of  Corinthian  pillars  and  esplanade  and  no 
wings,  one  or  two  stage  hands  moving  about,  and 
finally  a  concert  grand  piano  dragged  down. 

Suddenly  Lilly  recognized  Auchinloss.  He  was 
standing  just  outside  the  pool  of  light  that  flowed 
over  the  piano,  the  unforgetable  outline  of  his  shaggy 
head,  joined  by  two  little  peninsulas  of  sideburns  to 
the  heavy  spade  of  beard,  gray  now  and  not  the 
sooty  black  she  remembered. 


STAR  DUST  449 

The  odor  of  that  little  room  up  on  Amsterdam 
Avenue  came  winding  back.  Millie  du  Gass,  the  su 
preme  soprano  of  two  continents — dead  now,  of 
heartbreak,  some  said ;  Alma,  in  her  plaid-silk  waist 
and  the  bookkeeper's  curve  to  her  back.  That  walk 
across  the  parlor  floor — 

" There's  Auchinloss  now,"  said  Bruce. 

She  did  not  reply,  but  sat  with  her  handkerchief 
against  her  mouth  and  crowded  breathing 

There  were  three  auditions. 

A  high-bosomed  young  woman  with  a  powerful 
mezzo  soprano  that  pulled  her  mouth  to  a  rhomboid 
sang  Santuzza's  famous  aria  from  "Cavalleria  Rusti- 
cana,"  stopping  suddenly  to  some  unseen  signal. 

"Fine,  strong  voice  of  resonant  tin,"  said  Visi 
goth,  under  his  breath. 

A  throaty  young  tenor  sang  "Ride,  Ride,  Pagli- 
acci,"  through  to  the  sob,  anticipating  it  with  a 
violent  throw  of  body. 

Then  Trieste  took  the  piano,  running  downward  an 
avalanche  of  quick  chords,  the  sepia-outlined  head 
of  Auchinloss  gone  meanwhile  from  the  stage  and 
down  somewhere  in  the  sea  of  dimness  that  rolled 
through  the  auditorium.  Lilly  could  see  his  profile 
etched  into  the  twilight. 

Very  suddenly  Zoe  was  downstage,  and  through 
the  cymbals  hitting  into  Lilly's  consciousness  the 
voice  finally  came  through  to  her,  flowing  so  easily 
on  the  beautiful,  the  tried  old  theme  of  Michaela's 
aria  that  she  had  the  feeling  of  great  bolts  of  every 
color  ribbon,  winding  about  and  not  even  half  un- 
flung  as  they  struck  the  topmost  places. 

How  true  her  flight! 

With  each  fluty  mount  how  like  a  bird,  the  lin-p  of 
her  throat,  as  her  chin  went  up,  throbbing  slightly  of 


450  STAR   DUST 

its  warbling,  and  from  where  she  stood  her  gaze 
seeming  to  plumb  them  out. 

She  sang  through  without  interruption,  so  that 
when  she  had  finished,  the  timbre  lay  like  a  singing 
wire  on  the  silence. 

Somewhere  between  the  ecstasy  of  the  elbow  that 
pressed  against  hers,  and  the  ecstasy  of  her  child's 
voice  still  trilling  on  the  black  silence,  Lilly  was 
conscious  of  movement.  The  gray  silhouette  march 
ing  down  the  aisle  of  gloom.  A  group  up  about  the 
piano.  Another  chord  struck  out.  Zoe's  voice 
skipping  upward  in  grace  notes. 

Vague,  indeterminate  passings  of  figures  through 
a  fluid  of  unreality,  like  submarine  life  behind 
glass. 

Then  somehow  they  were  out  again  into  the  gloom 
of  wings  and  then  on  to  the  white,  incredible  hum 
drum  of  the  side  street,  standing  there  beside  the 
little  door  marked  "Private,"  Bruce  at  her  side, 
rather  quivery  at  the  flanges  and  mopping  constantly 
at  the  damp  rim  of  his  hair. 

' '  Lilly,  you've  won ! ' ' 

She  felt  sillily  inclined  to  laugh. 

"I  seem  to  have,  don't  I?"  she  said,  turning  her 
face  under  pretense  of  adjusting  her  hat,  but  really 
for  fear  that  even  a  smile  would  induce  the  threaten 
ing  laughter  which  she  knew,  once  let  go,  would  slip 
up  beyond  her  control. 

"She's  a  flute.  She's  a  lark.  She's  a  dream.  I— 
I  don't  believe  I  seem  to  take  it  in." 

"Nor— I." 

Later,  Zoe  joined  them,  an  air  of  assumed  com 
posure  belied  by  the  flaming  brilliancy  of  her  eyes 
an>.l  cheeks. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  up  afterward?"  she  said, 


STAR  DUST  451 

forcing  a  commonplace,  and  to  Bruce,  "Hail  a  cab, 
Pretty-please." 

He  did,  helping  them  in  and  poking  his  head  in 
after. 

"Where?" 

1 '  Anywhere.    Let  it  be  the  Park  for  a  while,  Lilly  ? ' ' 

She  nodded. 

"Is  three  a  crowd?" 

For  answer  she  drew  him  in  by  the  sleeve  and  on 
the  jouncing  off  of  the  cab  was  in  her  mother's  arms, 
covering  her  cheeks  with  close-pressed,  audible  kisses, 
and,  after  the  inexplicable  manner  of  women,  both  of 
them  crying. 

"He — he  didn't  say  much,  Lilly.  Kissed  my 
hands.  Told  me  to  live  beautifully  and  work  end 
lessly.  Asked  me  if  I  loved  poetry  and  painting 
and  sunrises  and  spring — a  lot  of  stuff  about  the 
awakening  of  spring.  And  kissed  my  hands  again. 
I'm  going  back  to-morrow.  They're  discussing  things 
now — he  and  maestro — something  about  a  five-year 
contract — but  a  great  deal  of  red  tape  first — board 
meeting.  I'm  to  be  a  secret  until  next  season. 
maestro  cried — and  Auchinloss —  Lilly,  you  need 
never  be  afraid  for  me — you  hear — you  hear — never! 
We  measured  each  other — he  called  me  wonder- 
child.  Me — Zoe.  Lilly — it's  happened  .  .  .  and  you 
— did  it.  Lilly,  kiss  me." 

"You  darling.  You're  like  a  queen.  All  the  little 
lives  that  go  into  the  making  of  your  cloth  of  gold, 
yet  each  proud  to  be  ever  so  humble  a  party  to  it!" 

" Lilly,  you're  sad!    On  my  day  you're  sad." 

"Glad!  You're  the  meaning  of  everything.  The 
road  had  to  lead  somewhere.  Everything  is  so  clear 
now.  You're  the  lovely  meaning,  Zoe,  behind  all 
the  circumstances  that  went  to  weave  you." 


452  STAR  DUST 

Only  half  plumbed,  Zoe  sprang  from  her  mood, 
flashing  with  all  the  amazing  coquetry  that  was  so 
new  to  Lilly,  around  toward  Bruce. 

"Well— what?" 

"On  the  very  day  I've  found  you  I've  lost  you." 

"To  whom?" 

"Fame." 

"Nonsense!"  she  cried.  "Don't  forget  the  awak 
ening  of  spring."  And  buried  her  face  against  her 
mother  because  she  had  been  outrageous. 

Persiflage  rose. 

"Skylark,  when  I  become  more  coherent  I'll  tell 
you  how  wonderful  you  are." 

"Zoe  dear,  hadn't  we  better  drive  home?" 

"Lark.  Lark.  I  cannot  go  home  now,  Lilly. 
Let's  have  a  lark ! " 

Suddenly  Bruce  caught  her  by  the  dancing  hands. 

"Let's  celebrate." 

"Let's!" 

"We'll  dine  at  Sherry's,  dance  at  the  Bilt— " 

' '  Lovely !    Lovely !    I '  ve  never  been  to  either ! ' ' 

"No,  no,  Zoe.  Please!  Your  grandparents  at 
home.  Besides,  it's  war  time." 

"Nonsense!  Laugh  while  we  may.  Next  month 
this  time  I'll  probably  be  in  the  thick  of  it  myself. 
Let's  laugh  to-day.  Vote  her  down,  Zoe!" 

"Pi-ease,  Lilly." 

"Your  grandparents,  Zoe,  they  don't  even  know 
the  news  yet — " 

"Lilly,  this  once.  Tippy  and  Dapples  aren't 
going  to  be  thrilled.  They  think  the  whole  business 
rather  low,  anyway.  Besides — there's  time — it's 
my  day — Lilly — " 

"Not  Sherry's,  then,  Zoe — a  quieter— 

"Immense!    I  have  it!    Tarry  town.     An  oppor- 


STAR  DUST  453 

tunity  to  show  you  the  place  before  you  go.  We'll 
drop  this  taxi  and  pick  up  my  car  at  the  garage. 
How's  that,  dinner  at  Tarrytown  ?  Perfect,  I'll  say." 

' '  What  a  duck  of  an  idea !    Oh,  la,  la,  la,  la ! ' ' 

And  so,  quite  dumbly,  Lilly  acquiesced  and  by  easy 
shift  to  the  tan-upholstered  car  that  ironed  out  all 
jolts,  and  a  stiff  breeze  from  the  Hudson  whirring 
softly  against  their  faces,  they  were  whirling  out 
along  quiet  stretches,  dusk  coming  down  like  a  veil. 
•  Seated  between  them,  Zoe  fell  to  singing,  trilling 
highly  and  softly,  her  head  bared  to  the  wind,  her 
tam-o'-shanter  on  Bruce's  lap,  and  Lilly  sitting  silent 
ly  by  with  lids  down  against  hot  eyeballs,  and  fighting 
a  sense  of  cross  grain. 

Presently  lights  began  to  come  out  along  the 
river,  like  the  gold  eyes  of  cats. 

"How  cool  your  fingers  are,  Zoe.  Like  the  petals 
of  something." 

"Lilly,  naughty  man  is  holding  back  one  of  my 
hands  on  me." 

"Lovely  hands." 

"Naughty  man." 

Silence. 

"Oh  dear." 

"Oh  dearest." 

"That  wasn't  for  you.    That  was  a  sigh." 

"But  I  stole  it." 

"Cheeky." 

Giggles. 

Silence  again  and  they  turned  off  a  macadamized 
road  that  was  prematurely  dark  with  trees  and  into 
a  lariat  of  driveway  that  elicited  from  Zoe  a  squeal 
of  enthrallment. 

Even  to  Lilly,  though  she  had  figured  in  its  pur 
chase,  there  was  something  startling  in  the  vast 


454  STAR  DUST 

classic  whiteness  and  formal  Italian  chastity  of  the 
house  as  they  flanked  it,  drawing  up  under  a  porte- 
cochere  of  Corinthian  columns.  Through  a  double 
row  of  cypresses  turning  black,  that  inclosed  a 
sunken  garden,  Dante  and  Virgil  might  have  moved, 
and  yet,  Lilly,  aching  with  the  analogy  which  could 
not  conjure,  could  only  call  up  rather  foolishly  the 
three-color  magazine  advertisement  of  a  low-stream 
line  motor  car,  drawn  up  before  just  such  Renais 
sance  magnificence. 

Three  sheer  and  cunningly  landscaped  terraces 
dropped  down  from  what  was  actually  the  rear  of  the 
house,  but  which  overhung  the  river,  so  that,  stepping 
out  of  the  car,  an  unsuspected,  breath-taking  pano 
rama  of  river  wound  itself,  at  that  moment  the 
Albany  boat  moving  upstream,  light-studded. 

ZOE  (out  at  a  bound):  "Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  Isolde's 
garden.  Tristan,  where  are  you?" 

"Here." 

"I  want  to  kiss  a  star — that  luscious  one  up 
there." 

"Let  me  be  proxy." 

"Lilly,  chastise  him!" 

She  smiled  at  him  with  her  tortured  eyes. 

"Like  it?"  he  said,  smiling  back  at  her  with  some 
thing  impersonal  in  his  eyes  that  deadened  her.  "All 
this  formality  is  hardly  my  choice;  it's  Pauline's 
idea." 

They  were  met  by  Pauline — known  to  Zoe  and 
her  mother  through  perfunctory  office  meetings. 
She  was  exceedingly  petite,  rather  appealingly  so  in 
her  widowhood,  and  of  her  younger  brother's  rather 
Spanish  darkness,  except  for  a  graying  coiffure  worn 
high  and  flatteringly. 

There  were  seventeen  years  between  them  and 


STAR  DUST  455 

yet  her  shoulders  were  deeply  white,  and  rose,  quite 
un withered,  out  of  a  jetted  evening  gown;  and  her 
profile,  also  with  the  heat  lightning  of  a  scarcely  per 
ceptible  nervous  quiver  to  it,  entirely  without  the 
sag  of  tired  flesh. 

A  certain  petulance  lent  to  her  exceedingly  well- 
bred  diction  quite  a  charm,  and  she  was  playful  and 
adoring  enough  to  pinch  each  cheek  of  her  brother's 
as  she  tiptoed  to  kiss  him. 

"Nice  boy  to  bring  home  charming  people  and 
save  me  from  the  boredom  of  dining  alone.  How's 
my  handsome  brother?  Naughty  boy!  It's  the  first 
time  you've  looked  yourself  in  weeks.  They  work 
him  too  hard  down  there,  Mrs.  Penny.  I  tell  my  fat 
brother  he's  become  little  more  than  anlromamental 
gargoyle.  It's  too  sordid  for  this  boy,  and  now  you 
running  away  from  him  just  when  I  had  hoped  the 
time  was  ripe  for  him  to  dabble  in  some  of  the  things 
he's  set  his  heart  on.  The  kind  of  plays  he  reads  all 
night  until  I  have  to  turn  his  lights  out.  Shame  on 
you  for  running  away!" 

Her  twitter,  from  topical  bough  to  topical  bough, 
hardly  demanded  reply.  She  exclaimed  over  Zoe, 
admiring  her  extravagantly,  insisted  upon  kissing 
away  a  purely  imaginary  look  of  headache  from  her 
brother's  brow,  and  led  the  way  quite  tinily  regal, 
her  running  line  of  comment  unbroken. 

In  a  soft  boudoir  of  French  grays,  French  doors, 
cerulean  blues,  and  a  litter  of  every  extravagant 
requisite  of  the  toilet,  Lilly  faced  herself  in  a  cun 
ningly  triplicated  mirror. 

"We're  not  dressed.  We  shouldn't  have  come," 
trying  to  ride  down  her  sense  of  misery. 

"I'm  dressed  in  all  the  cloth  of  gold  you  have 
woven  for  me,"  quoth  Zoe,  in  mock  grandiloquence, 


456  STAR  DUST 

still  pitched  to  her  exultant  key  and  in  all  her  youth 
ful  capacity  for  it,  full  of  self. 

There  were  enamel-backed  brushes  with  deep 
bristles  that  plowed  her  hair  out  into  dust  of  gold, 
and  a  finely  wrought  amber  comb  which  she  ran 
through  the  fluff,  striking  an  attitude. 

''She  walks  in  splendor  like  the  night — " 

"Zoe,  you're  losing  your  head." 

"Splendor!  This  is  me.  Marble — terraces — rugs 
that  slide — only  I  want  peacocks — that  strut — and 
tails  that  open  like  fans  and — starlight — him — " 

"Who?" 

"Silly  darling — nobody — the  world — life." 

There  was  no  restraining  her.  She  smoothed  her 
mother's  hair  only  to  kiss  it  awry  again.  She  fluffed 
a  fragrant  cloud  of  powder  along  her  neck.  Trilled 
at  a  drowsy  canary  in  a  wicker  cage.  Stretched  her 
self  in  the  conscious  pose  of  a  Recamier  on  the  lacy 
mound  of  a  chaise-longue,  and  finally  followed  her 
mother  into  the  drawing-room,  entirely  at  ease  in 
the  straight  blue  frock. 

It  was  a  room  almost  the  width  of  the  house, 
with  a  balcony  at  one  end  hung  in  a  shah's  silk  prayer 
rug,  and  a  stone  fireplace,  out  of  the  Davanziti  palace, 
opposite.  Three  sets  of  leaded  doors  opened  out  on  to 
a  flagged  parapet  that  overlooked  the  Hudson  and 
beyond  the  deep  purple  of  perfect  September. 

They  met  in  a  little  group  at  one  of  these  doors,  and 
Lilly  noticed  gratefully  that  Mrs.  Enlow  had  thrown 
a  net  wrap  over  the  formality  of  her  evening  gown 
and  that  Bruce  had  merely  changed  to  flannels. 

He  smiled  at  her  with  that  impersonal  sort  of 
kindness  which  could  cause  such  a  gush  of  blood  to 
her  heart,  and  spread  himself  in  a  playful  salaam 
before  Zoe. 


STAR  DUST  457 

"Princess." 

She  held  out  her  hand  to  be  kissed,  which  he  did 
five  times,  finger  by  finger. 

"These  terraces,"  said  Lilly,  trying  not  to  be 
heavy,  "are  like  the  setting  for  an  ^Egean  romance." 

He  smiled  back  at  her  again  through  the  new  film 
across  his  eyes. 

"Write  it  and  I'll  produce  it." 

"Close  the  doors,  Dicky;  it's  growing  chilly,"  said 
Mrs.  Enlow. 

"Yes,"  said  Lilly,  shivering  a  bit,  "chilly." 

"And  I'm  burning,  Dicky,  Tickey  Tavey,"  cried 
Zoe,  applying  the  name  audaciously.  "How  can 
anyone  be  chilly  on  such  a  night  as  this?" 

"Come,  Princess,  and  I'll  show  you  some  stars." 

"Don't  wander  too  far  before  dinner,  children. 
Mrs.  Penny  and  I  will  sit  indoors.  Only  youth  can 
risk  swollen  joints." 

"Yes,"  said  Lilly,  feeling  herself  rather  terrifiedly. 
past  the  fiercer  rush  of  life,  "only  youth." 

They  sat  on  a  great  overstuffed  divan  that  faced 
the  parapet,  lighted  softly  at  each  end  by  the  first 
lamps  of  evening. 

"Why,  you  poor  child,  you're  shivering  of  chill! 
It's  the  damp.  Let  me  get  you  a  wrap." 

In  the  thickening  silence  Lilly  sat  alone  looking  out 
through  the  glass  doors.  Bruce  and  Zoe  were  sil 
houetted  out  there  against  a  fathomless  evening  sky 
that  was  brilliantly  pointed  with  a  few  big  stars. 
But  they  were  not  gazing  out.  Her  face  was  up  to 
his  like  a  flower  about  to  be  plucked,  and,  looking 
down  into  it,  his  whole  body  seemed  to  sway  to  its 
sweetness. 

Suddenly  the  ache  in  Lilly's  heart  was  laid.    With' 
all   of  her   old  capacity  for  the   incongruous,   but 


58  STAR  DUST 

ithout  any  of  her  usual  pump  of  terrc 
lought  suddenly  of  her  father,  two  nights 
tting  down  to  the  creamed  salmon  and 
Dtatoes  on  Page  Avenue,  hanging  his  napki 
le  patent  fasteners  about  his  neck.  Edna  $ 
.ust  teach  her  that  French-knot  stitch  for 
>wns — in  case — heigh-ho ! — in  case — 

With  her  gaze  on  those  two  etched  and  el< 
•ofiles,  a  piercing  sense  of  achievement  seer 
>w  with  a  warm  rush  of  blood,  curing  her  o 

Her  heart  beat  high  with  what  even  migh 
'  ;en  fulfillment. 


THE   END 


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